We are preparing for finals

We will take four exams. Yesterday we took a final for communication skills and persuasive messages. We studied: AP style, grammar, punctuation and usage.
Now we are studying marketing management for a take-home exam on Thursday. It can be done with a good partner. Next, we are solving a lot of statistics problems. We have learned about confidence intervals, regression and sample size.  We still have the consumer insights test to complete.  This is an online exam, but we have a three hour limit for the test. The courses are a lot of work but we are learning a lot. Good luck to all of our classmates!

Join the Crayon Panel Discussion on Second Life, Will you?

Want to explore more about Second Life? Another group of students involving in the Second Life project put together an exciting event for all of you to attend online- Crayon Panel Discussion!

They have invited three experienced panelists to discuss their viewpoint about Second Life, including

• Greg Verdino-
  Chief Strategic Officer of Crayon,
  Former VP of Emerging Channels for Digitas,
  Marketing/New media blogger,
  
• C.C. Chapman-
  a new media maven, award-winning music podcast host and marketing blogger, and
  
• Matt Dickman-
  Interactive Marketing Strategist and Technology Evangelist at DigiKnow agency

When to meet?
　　Friday, December 7, 12-1 p.m.
　(GMT -6:00, Central Standard Time)
Where to meet?
　　Crayonville, Second Life

Prepare your questions, and join the discussion! See you there!

Project Presentation on "Second Life"

Let Sindy, Ivan, Won Joo, Albert, Noah tell you how it works!

This group gave a brief presentation regarding "Engagement" in Second Life today. For our Communication Skills and Persuasive Messages class, they have been involved in this 3-D online community to learn how to create a virtual identity to interact with others in that world. Furthermore, they invited Ashlee Humphreys, the Co-Instructor of our Consumer Insight class, to discuss the concept of "media engagement," which is a term that professors Bobby Calder and Ed Malthouse coined this year. They also gave examples of how companies, including Mercedes Benz, the NBA, and Vodafone, use this media engagement strategy in Second Life to promote the company/organization and their products.

How many of the group members have "Second Life" before this project?

Zero.

Did they learn a lot about this interactive social media platform?

Absolutely!

See Our Exciting Life by Video!

"See You at Medill, Northwestern!" This group of IMC students welcomes all prospective students by creating this video clip! They have covered some of our classes, interviews with professors, student event clips, and testimonials from several current students.

Check the video, and tell me that you are seriously considering becoming one of us!

5 Girls & A Guy- Live Video by IMC Students

What's going on at this moment in IMC? 5 Girls & A Guy will tell you LIVE!
Go and watch their video at http://www.justin.tv/ziggy22

5 Girls & A Guy

I'll be streaming my life as a grad student studying integrated marketing. Tune in to check out all aspects of my life.

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....

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 :-)

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!

"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.

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?

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

MTC Building, We Study Hard Here!

IMC students attend classes in the McCormick Tribune Center. Actually, it's the building for all Medill School of Journalism classes. It is the home of classrooms, offices for professors, MTC Forum, computer labs, and a student lounge (place with coffee, snacks, fridge, and microwave!)

There are always something going on inside the MTC Forum, either classes or presentations, or performances and corporate receptions.

The best thing about the building is

IT IS VERY CLOSE TO THE LAKE!

Students can see the lake from the classroom window!

But hey, remember, we should focus on our studies!!

What keeps us so busy?

The truth be told- IMC students never get a break.

For fall 2007, everyone takes four courses-

• IMC Marketing Management
• Consumer Insight
• Marketing Research and Statistics
• Communication Skills & Persuasive Messages
  

We finished our Statistics mid-term late October, and we quickly rolled into several other assignments and projects. For the moment, most people are busy preparing their interview assignment due on Thursday, while some are preparing the Ford Ka group presentation for Consumer Insight. At the same time, everyone is anxiously working on Prof. Jakki's assignment on Marvel Enterprises' case analysis for IMC Marketing Management. You know, you always want to be prepared for case discussions, because you never know if you are going to be cold-called to present your findings! Relax, it's all about learning from each other, so go ahead and volunteer to present!

Wait a minute, does that mean we have lots of case studies in IMC?

Exactly!

What is IMC?

Hello Everyone!

IMC is an acronym for Integrated Marketing Communications, which is a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time. Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations, billboard, radio, and television.1

The IMC program at Northwestern is a 15-month, five-quarter graduate degree program in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. The program teaches us how to become the best marketing professionals around by understanding how to engage, persuade and activate consumers from the consumers point-of-view.

New for Fall 2007, there are two concentrations in the IMC program : Analysis and Insight and Brand, Ideas and Communications. We spend the first two quarters in core IMC courses, in the 3rd quarter we take electives in our concentration. During the 4th quarter, we work with an employer in the Professional Residency program (similar to a summer internship, but the employer pays our tuition for the quarter and we receive credit for our residency project). Past residency sponsors include: 3M, Draft FCB, and T-Mobile. In our last quarter, we take our remaining electives and work on several real-world corporate projects.

Graduates of the IMC program are employed in such positions as: Brand Managers, Account Planners, PR Professionals, Internal Communications Specialists, Database Marketing Managers and Strategic Marketing Consultants.

We are currently learning how to:

• Effectively conduct market research and analyze statistical data
• Understand the nuances of consumer behavior
• Develop clear-and-concise brand communications that resonate with internal and external stakeholders

For more information, please visit the Medill link on our blog.

1- Source: The American Marketing Association