IMC vs. MBA

When we started the program, many of our classmates were discussing what led them to the Northwestern IMC program, although there were some differing rationales, there was one similarity...the MBA just "wasn't for them."

With all due respect to the MBA programs, we felt that the traditional business administration courses which are accounting- and finance-heavy, would fill our schedules with course material we didn't want to focus on. For us, marcom (or marketing communications) is our thing.

We wanted the much needed framework of statistics and finance, which is necessary to truly understand our field, but we wanted more of a marketing-based graduate education. With IMC, we gain such an in-depth understanding of marketing, that we truly can dive into any career whether it be the agency side or client side. IMC grads are true pioneers in this field...as many of our Professors and Alumni have proven!

Look for more information in the coming days....

What a Diverse Group!

The IMC full-time program is composed of 80 students from different locales, fields of studies, and age groups.

These graduate students hail from states such as: Washington, California, Texas, North Dakota, Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Illinois (of course), among others. Additionally, there are many international students as well who come to Northwestern, like all of us, for this amazing program! Countries represented in the IMC program are: China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Germany, Morocco, Brazil, Venezuela, and Canada.

Almost all of the students have some kind of work experience and that varies from fields such as Advertising, Broadcast Journalism, Economics, Entertainment, Marketing, Publishing, Non-Profit Organizations, Engineering, and Public Relations...and the list goes on. What are we saying here? The IMC program, with all of its diversity, only enhances our learning, both inside and outside of the classroom. It is great to hear about classmates' experiences when they apply in-class learnings to their previous work situations, or go so far as comparing U.S. business strategies to that of their native country. At the end of the day, we all become a little more informed and those who may not have had work experience prior to starting the program, can learn more about different fields and companies.

Top 10 Things I've Learned in IMC

1o. The correct spelling of the word Web site

9. Sentences should contain a max of 17 words

8. AP Style Rules!

7. The 3 C's of Marketing: Customer, Competitor, Company

6. Style Points Matter!

5. How to create a Positioning Statement

4. How to create a Communications Brief

3. Calculating price elasticity

2. Strategies for segmenting markets

1. And... the number 1 thing I learned in IMC: According to Dr. Rapaille, The cheese is dead, inside a body bag, in the refrigerator :-)

Black Friday

Excited to Shop? We are!

It is currently Thanksgiving night and many of us are gearing up for what has traditionally been the best shopping day of the year - "Black Friday"- as many call it. Are you still not sure what the term "Black Friday" means? Well, it is an accounting term in which (supposedly) companies are "in the red" (or losing money) until the day after Thanksgiving, when they are "in the black" (or making a lot of $$$$$).

I have to a say, I am excited. I love shopping for other people at Christmas (actually, I would be kidding myself if I said I didn't like to shop for myself as well...after all, as a handbag fanatic, I can always add a new one to the collection). It is great that some stores will open tomorrow starting as early as 4am or 5am! I also learned yesterday that an area Starbucks will be opening at 4am (tomorrow only) to better serve all the early bird shoppers. Wow! Thanks Starbucks.

What a great way to spend a Friday...get up early, grab a caffeinated beverage of choice, and shop! With no school and no work for many, it is as if the retailers are just calling your name. Plus, you have to admit, there is a great feeling to getting your Christmas (or Hannukah, etc.) shopping done early.

Maybe we'll see you tomorrow. Just look for the Northwestern sweatshirts. :)

Nearby Evanston Shopping:

- Downtown Evanston (see the City of Evanston link, on the left)

- Old Orchard (www.westfield.com/oldorchard)

66 Old Orchard Shopping Ctr.

Skokie, IL

Dorm Life-Engelhart Hall

Where do a lot students live? For sure, some choose to live off-campus by themselves, with family or friends, while others choose to live in the graduate student dormitory- Engelhart Hall.

Engelhart is a 10-floor building with many twin studios, one bedroom singles and one/two bedroom apartments. For public facilities, we have study/discussion rooms, party rooms, laundry room, indoor and outdoor playground for family with kids, indoor and outdoor parking lots.

All dorm rooms are furnished with essential items, phone line, land-line Internet, and basic cable TV. Best of all, electricity, water, Internet and cable fees are included in the rent. Residents can also enjoy events hosted by the administration including

• Floor Party & Welcome BBQ- get to know your neighbors
  
• Weekend Shopping Trip- shop together with transportation provided
  
• Free Salsa Class- to learn the Latin dance together
• Halloween Party- to enjoy the holiday with funny costumes, candies and games!

Why not consider living in the dorm?

It is All about Consumer Insight!

"For other courses, you compute numbers.

For this class, SHOW ME CONSUMER INSIGHT!"

That is what Gerri and Ashlee, lecturers of Consumer Insight, emphasized again and again.

The question is, how?

We learned many analytical tools from this class, including

• 3C's of Marketing: Customer, Competitor, Company
• How to create a Positioning Statement
• VALS Survey: using it to know the characteristics of the target market and to take appropriate action to catch their attention and to meet their needs
• How to conduct and to interpret perceptual map
  
• Exposure, Attention, and Cognition
• Hierarchy of Effects models.....
  

We also learned how to do Ethnography by conducting observations and interviews, and we had to apply what we learned from the class and readings to generate consumer insights. But the most challenging part (and sometimes the most interesting part) of this class was the group case study project! For each case, two groups would do the presentations while other classmates involving in with completing evaluation sheet and asking questions.

The four cases we went through were about L'Oreal Plenitude, Contadina Pizza, Ford Ka and Harley-Davidson. They were quite different in nature, and we all saw our classmates analyzing them with various approaches and tools.

Are we getting closer to consumer insight?

Oh yes!

Whole Foods

Where do we buy groceries?
Whole Foods carries organic and natural products.
Whole Foods is not cheap supermarket, but if you concerned about quality and accessibility, I strongly recommend it.
The reason that many people shop here might be the location.
It's located 5 minutes from campus. It is easy to carry your heavy shopping bags home.
Map

"The Residency" a.k.a. Our 4th Quarter

During the 4th quarter of the IMC program, most students participate in what it called a residency, an 11-week period when students are able to apply what they learned inside the classroom to the workforce, by becoming a contributing member of a company. The IMC program stresses the importance of the residency experience; it allows the student to not only gain in-depth marketing experience but it also gives student the opportunity to work on real company projects!

Each year, there is a great variety of companies that offer a residencies to Northwestern IMC students...some of those companies are:
Google
The Coca-Cola Company
OgilvyOne, Ogilvy & Mather
Edelman
Hearst-Argyle Television
EuroRSCG
Discover Financial Services
Draftfcb
FedEx Services Solutions and Technology
T-Mobile USA
U.S.Cellular
Dow Chemical
Yum! Brands
Nimblefish Technologies
Y.S Interative
Western Union
Facebook

Students receive academic credit for their residencies and will have a faculty member assigned, to best monitor the student's success over the summer. The residency program definitely provides a win-win situation for both the company and the student.

***If your company is interested in becoming a residency sponsor, please contact Tom Collinger, IMC Department Chair at t-collinger@northwestern.edu ***

In the summer, students will also have the opportunity to participate in an international group residency in Asia.

Panel of IMC Alumni from Google

Get a job!

Today, Nov. 20, we listened to a panel of IMC Alumni from Google, the famous Web searching company.

Members of the analytics, account strategy and advertising departments talked about their experiences at Google and how it aligns with the goals and concepts of IMC.

This event was provided by Professional Speakers Series - a student run organization that connects professionals with students to promote conversations regarding the industry.

Give thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Today, Tuesday, November 20, marks the official start of our Thanksgiving break. Some students will be traveling out of state (and therefore battling the heavy traffic at the airports), some will be staying in Chicago to spend time with family or friends, and some will be traveling to celebrate with a family via a home-stay program. Look out for posts about some of the international students' experiences with their home-stay families.

Last night, some of us had a little pre-thanksgiving dinner of our own. It was a great time and a great break from a busy couple of weeks. A few of brought the traditional dishes: turkey and gravy, stuffing, candied yams, pumpkin pie, and apple pie.

We all look forward to the next couple of days and look forward to hearing about our fellow students' Thanksgiving festivities. As we head to our respective destinations, we would all like you wish you a happy holiday!

(I know you were curious, so yes, we will continue to post while away from Northwestern. :) )

Saturday Night Lights

This past Saturday, many IMC students met downtown to see the Magnificent Mile's Festival of Lights, presented by Harris Bank. The events took place on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, between Oak St. and Illinois St.. Everyone was excited to start celebrating the holidays. There was a great turn-out by IMC students who were interested in seeing their first Chicago holiday festival.


The night started off with a performance by KT Tunstall and then moved on to a group holiday Christmas carol. Around 6pm, the parade started and the lights were on, showcasing the Magnificent Mile. The night ended with fireworks over the river, on the south end of north Michigan Avenue, a visit to the Hershey store, dinner with friends, and of course, some late-night shopping!

We've told you, IMC students study hard!

Currently, students are busy working on some projects related to new media. For our Communication Skills & Persuasive Messages class, we had to edit a one minute video news recording using our own transcript. For the same course, different groups are collecting materials for their social networking projects including Facebook, You Tube, Second Life, or Blog. When you see IMC students rushing around with their digital cameras or video cameras, or having serious discussions in the computer lab, don't be surprised- They are working hard!

Nevertheless, other courses didn't slow down for us. Jakki was so happy about the outcome of the Marvel Enterprises' class presentation, she plans to have us do it again, with another case. We got an SPSS assignment from Consumer Insights last weekend, and realized today that this practice would be included in the final. Guess what? Besides all this, students are still struggling through Ed's Statistics. How could it become so complicated?

We know that we...we will survive!

The lake on campus

If we get stressed because of the many assignments or exams we have, what can we do? We can take a rest at the lake, one of the most beautiful places on campus. Evanston is getting colder, but still enough to enjoy the changing fall weather. If you go to the main library, you can study while you view the peaceful lake.

Very cool, huh?

Koi-Chinese fusion restaurant

Koi - Chinese & Sushi

This restaurant is highly recommended if you want to have a great dinner with a group of your friends.

The portions are very generous, you can order two dishes to share among three people.

You can enjoy your dinner with your friends or family eating Chinese food or Sushi.
After 7 o’clock, you should make a reservation, or you might wait for more than an hour.

Here some of the chef's top recommendations: lemon chicken, seafood combination, crispy duck, filet mignon with black pepper sauce, black mushroom duck, szechwan style red snapper

Map

It's Party Time!

If you are in the mood to let loose, here is what Evanston has to offer. Great bars, dancing and drinks - you will have a blast!

Nevin's - This Irish pub is a great place to meet your classmates and students from other programs. It often hosts MBA students, PhD students and even some undergrads who can get through the bouncer. Beer is constantly flowing and you are guaranteed a good time!

http://www.tommynevinspubs.com/

The Keg - This is a college classic. If you are nostalgic of your college days, this is the place to go. Be ready to dance on the bar and mingle with undergrads! A few weeks ago, JIMC had a fundraiser there. It was great! The staff was bar tending and the proceeds went to the journal.
(located on Sherman and Davis)

Bar Louie - Great Burgers! This bar is perfect for pre-gaming and meeting friends for a drink. It is right next to The Keg, which is nice. Bring a group of friend and start your night right.

http://www.barlouieamerica.com/evanston.html

Pete Miller's - This is a fancy spot. The food is amazing and the Jazz band is a must. Come for a glass of wine or for a full-on meal. Either way, you are going to enjoy yourself and treat your palate!

http://www.petemillers.com/

To be continued...

NU IMC Resource: Top 10 NU IMC Application Tips

We found some very useful information posted by an IMC part-time student describing the Top 10 Tips for preparing your application to the IMC program. Here are few:

10. Talk to a current student to get a first-hand perspective on the program...

7. Take the GRE or GMAT early enough...

5. Give some thought to selecting your references...

4. Don't be shy when sharing information about your achievements and success...

3. The admissions interview is low stress. Be yourself...

Want to know more? Check the link!

NU IMC Resource: Top 10 NU IMC Application Tips