The SC National Guard has missed their recent recruitment targets by as much as 15 percent over recent years, so they decided to turn to MBA marketing students in the Darla Moore School of Business.
The National Guard believes they are falling below their target of 1,400 recruits because of a rise in obesity, the prevalence of tattoos and attitudes toward the military. But when the SC National Guard approached Jeff Rehling, director of the Center for Marketing Solutions through USC and marketing lecturer, with the problem and what the SC National Guard has to offer to recruits, he was quick to agree to take on the project.
“[Rehling] said, ‘that’s incredible. If that’s what you have to offer, why aren’t people banging at your door?’” said Lieutenant Colonel Matt Fryman, head of recruitment for the SC National Guard.
He met with a representative from the National Guard at the beginning of 2014 and decided to assign the real-life project to his marketing course.
Rehling teaches marketing strategy, including innovative thinking, research and audience, but he likes to make sure his students know how to take what they learn outside of the classroom.
“In my classes we write a real marketing plan for a real company that’s trying to take advantage of a real marketing opportunity or solve a real problem,” Rehling said.
Rehling believes the class was able to achieve his objectives for the project.
“I think first and foremost, they learned the important role marketing plays in any organization. I think they learned that first hand. Marketing is front and center in building long-term and loyal customers,” Rehling said. “I think they learned from start to finish how to develop a market strategy.”
Students also said the project was effective in helping them learn the material. As marketing students, many of them already know exactly what career path they want to pursue.
“The biggest learning experience is being able to put everything into one project and put everything into real life,” said Leacy Burke, a second-year mass communications masters student. “This is something we know is going to be a part of our lives.”
Fryman also found the project, which was presented through six different competing groups, successful.
“I certainly got a new nugget, if you will, a gem that we can directly use quickly from each of the six presentations,” Fryman said.
Fryman described the presentations as well-thought-out, well-rehearsed and fluid.
“Every one of the projects had something that, A) I didn’t think of before or, B) gave a new twist on something I had already thought of before,” he said.
When asked about her favorite part of the project, Burke said “the client, 100 percent” without pausing.
“It’s really easy to be passionate and give 110 percent every day when you have the best client, and the National Guard was," she said. “It made it really easy to pull an all-nighter working.”
The project also had a twist: the class was divided into six groups that competed against each other for the honor of the best presentation. Burke said this made the assignment even harder, and made her focus more on being different from other teams.