Marketing Majors Design Campaign for Car Dealer

There were festive multicolor balloons, shiny new cars, blaring music, information tables, the smell of a nearby barbecue and even promotional key chains and pens. For four hours last week, the lawn in front of Oxnard College’s cafeteria had all the trappings of a full-fledged promotional event.

And it was a full-fledged promotional event, except one thing was different.

The marketing campaign--created for Todey Motor Co. of Oxnard--was not designed and pulled off by a high-priced ad agency, but rather by 12 marketing majors at Oxnard College.

As part of the General Motors Marketing Internship Program, the students, collectively known as Condor Promotions Inc., were given the task of creating an on-campus presence for the local Chevrolet and Geo dealer. Todey supplied a $2,500 promotional budget.

“The job Todey gave us was, first, to approach college-age, first-time buyers, and second, to increase Todey’s name recognition on campus,” said Carmen Guerrero-Calderon, instructor of the marketing class. “It is a real hands-on experience. Students faced real marketing and advertising problems.”

Beginning in September, a dozen students, ages 19 to 43, surveyed the Oxnard College population to determine what most students were looking for in a car, what price range they could afford, and if they knew that the Todey dealership existed.

“We conducted the market research to learn the best way to advertise and communicate with the target market,” said Lary Olszewski, a marketing student involved in the promotion. “What impressed me most was the degree of effort that went into learning about the target market.”

What the marketing team discovered from its survey was that most students had not heard of the Todey dealership and that most were willing to spend up to $12,000 on a car--though many said that they would prefer to drive the more expensive Camaro.

What Condor Promotions also discovered was that its important target audience represented a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

“The key to marketing is making the customer feel you understand and appreciate his background,” Olszewski said. “I think being more culturally sensitive to the group you are trying to market to, instead of going the all-American way, is important. Creating a kind of comfortable feeling generates credibility. If people think you are an outsider, you are suspicious.”

After the initial research, the Condor Promotions team made a multimedia presentation to representatives of General Motors and Todey. Last week’s event was the culminating promotional push. A follow-up report to Todey and General Motors Corp., due by Dec. 18, will conclude the program.

GM will judge the marketing performance of the Oxnard College students against that of students participating in the internship program at other colleges throughout the country, with the winning team to be announced in June.

“[The students] were very enthusiastic putting this together. They were very coordinated and put in a lot of work,” said Helen Wood, marketing and customer relations manager for Todey. “They made an all-around marketing effort.”

Wood said the student advertising team developed a campaign worthy of a professional ad agency. “We were very impressed,” she said.

“It was a real image-building, awareness-type promotion.”