| Kogod students steer Chevrolet marketing campaign BY ADRIENNE FRANK Tasked with introducing the AU community to a pair of sporty Chevrolets, 35 students were in the driver’s seat. 
Photos by Bill Petros
A student shows off the sporty Chevy Cobalt. The marketing, communications, and public relations students, who dubbed themselves NOVUS Group, partnered with Chevrolet to promote the compact Cobalt, and the HHR, a new sport utility vehicle. The Chevrolet Marketing Internship Program was sponsored by EdVenture Partners, a Berkeley-based marketing firm. “The class worked as an advertising agency with a real client and a real budget,” said Kogod professor Idil Yaveroglu of the students enrolled in his Advertising and Marketing Communications Management class. “Not only did students find out how an agency works, but they also found out how much planning needs to go into all the details and how many little things can go wrong at times. We got our hands dirty.”
A student checks the Chevy HHR’s trunk space last Monday on the quad. |
Students handled all aspects of promotion, from penning press releases and pitching local media outlets to conducting market research and advertising the vehicles on campus. Last Monday, the students invited members of the AU community to check out the cars, which were parked on the quad, stereos blaring and doors open. After climbing in the driver’s seat and peeking under the hood, people were asked to complete a survey about their opinion of the cars and their consumption habits. According to Meghan Zichelli, who headed up the group’s public relations campaign, the students aimed to get at least 700 surveys. They ended the day with 740. “It felt really good because it’s what we had been working up to all semester,” said Zichelli, a senior studying public relations and marketing. This isn’t the end of the road for NOVUS Group, though. The students still have to meet with Chevrolet executives to evaluate the success of their campaign. From an educational point of view, however, Zichelli already knows the project was a hit. “Hands-on work like this really helps you grasp the concepts we talk about in class,”she said. “Each person played a specific role, so we got to experience what it would be like at a real agency.” |
