ImprezaPalooza rocks Mockingbird Station (Photo by Danny Wilderotter, The Daily Campus)
More than 700 students, faculty and members of the Dallas community and surrounding areas gathered on the upper level of Mockingbird Station last night as SMU’s HorsePower Marketing and Subaru teamed up to create ImprezaPalooza. The event featured local bands and entertainment in hopes to raise awareness of the new cars created by Subaru.
HorsePower Marketing was created by 16 SMU students from the Honors Marketing Practicum class, under the leadership of Professor Judy Foxman.
Twelve schools were hand selected by Subaru’s EdVenture team including SMU, USC, UNT and Emery University. “With these college-wide events, Subaru has the chance to tap into an area of the target market that may have been unapproachable without the students’,” said Connie Orson, Program Facilitator for Edventure Partners.
All schools that participated in the competition were given $2,500 and a goal of strengthening awareness and support of the Subaru Impreza marketing with Generation Y, as well as building brand image and purchase consideration of the Subaru name.
The top three schools will be flown to Cherry Hill New Jersey, where they will pitch their campaign. The winning school will receive $3,000 and a chance to see their ideas implemented in a national campaign for Subaru.
ImprezaPalooza has been a semester long project for marketing students. The class set up a real marketing agency divided into four different departments including; Research, Advertising, Campaign Development & Implementation, and Public Relations.
“I have learned a lot from this experience,” said Stephanie Ramirez of the Campaign Development and Implementation Team. “Coming up with a good strategy that everyone can rally around takes a lot of time and effort, but the rewards are well worth it in the end,” she said.
Free pizza and chips with queso were provided by Trinity Hall and Strombili Cafe. Adding to the ambiance of the event, a stage was set up where guests could enjoy performances from local bands Kessler, Envoy, Point 5 Covenant and Red Letter Holiday.
“Our sound is like Beastie Boys meets Black Eyed Peas,” said Point Five Covenant band member Flip Cadereo, who was also the master of ceremonies for ImprezaPalooza.
The event was not only a hit with the SMU community, but schools like UNT, University of Dallas and even high school students came out to support the event, as well as their favorite bands.
Johnathon Ogle, drummer for Kessler was impressed with the support that his band received from the audience, and hopes that “the show will generate more buzz for his band and promote their upcoming Curtain Club performance on May 6.”
“I think the bands really helped draw people to our event. We were so lucky to have some really talented musicians playing at the event,” said HorsePower Marketing Public Relations Department Head Taylor Custer.
“What Drives You Challenge Events,” were available for students to participate in. Challenges ranged from “2.5iQ Test,” trivia game, “Sport Reloaded,” relay race, “WRX RC Rumble,” remote control car race and a “STI Dash,” Gran Turismo video game rally race. Winners of these challenges received prizes including; A Eurorail pass, restaurant certificates from Trinity Hall and Rockfish, CDs and DVDs donated by Virgin Megastore and clothing from Movida, Mountain Hideout and the Dallas Galleria.
In the past years of this program the maximum amount of donations received by any school has been $10,000. SMU has already trumped that number with donations exceeding $14,000.
The top three schools will be chosen in mid May, and will fly to Cherry Hill later that month for the final round of competition.
“My experience working with SMU students has been phenomenal! They are bright, creative and just a fun group to work with,” said Orson. “SMU has gone above and beyond the basic objectives set by the program,” she said.
