Winning Approaches: Sony Sony

On the "to-do" list for Du, Brahmbhatt, and Shah: Clean sweep at Sony. Check.

By now you may think you’ve heard it all when it comes to Berkeley MBA students winning case competitions. After all, this year students have made strong showings in healthcare, education technology, real estate, innovation, entrepreneurship, and renewable energy.

Well, here’s a case (competition) where Berkeley-Haas students were on the teams that came in first, and second, oh and third. Respectively, Raj Brahmbhatt, Benny Du, and Krishna Shah, all MBA 13, accomplished this feat in the Sony Marketing Strategy Case Competition, hosted by UCSD’s Rady School and held at Sony Electronics headquarters in San Diego, Feb. 10-12.

The competition randomly assembled teams of four, mixing students from participating schools such as Stern, Marshall, Anderson, and Ross, and gave them approximately 20 hours to tackle a challenge from Sony. Students were provided with some background information and asked to respond to three case questions that focused on Sony’s competitive positioning and product and marketing strategy for the short term, medium term, and long term.

Berkeley-Haas was the only school to be represented across all three winning teams, leading one to wonder if this was, perhaps, no coincidence. The secret weapon for all three teams? “Innovative ideas and recommendations supported by a solid strategic framework and good data,”  says Brahmbhatt.

Dinner with eBay’s Chief Marketer

Richelle Parham, eBay's chief marketer for North America, addresses the CMO Insight Series

Richelle Parham could have spent last Tuesday evening with actor Brad Pitt. Instead, the chief marketing officer for eBay North America was discussing brand strategy with Berkeley MBA students over dinner and seemed delighted to be doing so.

Parham kicked off the first session in this year’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Insight Series, a Berkeley MBA course in which top marketing executives from companies including Wells Fargo, Jamba Juice, Salesforce, and Genentech will share wisdom with students in the classroom and in a more intimate setting over dinner.

Parham’s missed opportunity to rub shoulders with Pitt was during an eBay online charity auction experience brought to life in a physical and interactive gallery hosted by eBay and Make It Right, an organization Pitt founded to help rebuild New Orleans’ Lower 9^th Ward. She fit in her Haas engagement between serving as a panelist at a White House Urban Economic Forum and as keynote speaker at the Dare 2B Digital conference on tech careers for young women.

In class, Parham discussed the company’s auctions aimed at raising funds for charity, sharing examples from Buffet, Bieber, and Beatrice (Warren, Justin, and Princess). Each auctioned off something of value (lunch with, lock of hair, famous pink party hat) to raise funds—together more than $2.9 million in this case—for worthy causes.

Repositioning the World’s Largest Online Marketplace

However, eBay is now about much more than auctions, as Parham pointed out while sharing insights on repositioning “the world’s largest online marketplace.” Parham, who previously served as head of global marketing innovations and initiatives for Visa, launched the class with one of eBay’s new TV spots. “Good, you laughed!” she said at the end. “I’ll say more later about why that was important.”

Parham said that while eBay enjoys 99.9 percent to 100 percent brand recognition, the company still has legacy perceptions to battle. “A lot of people still think of eBay as the place for auctions and used merchandise, but, in fact, 90 percent of eBay items today are fixed price and more than 50 percent of our merchandise is brand new,” she said. Much of her work since joining eBay in fall 2010 has been to align consumer perceptions with eBay’s new reality.

Whimsy is part of the approach, hence Parham’s appreciation of the laughs that followed her TV spot about parental attention deficit at a child’s school play. The new campaign pokes gentle fun at everything from “mom jeans” to gossiping about celebrities during a mani/pedi and features eBay’s new messaging: When it’s on your mind it’s on eBay. Buy it new. Buy it now.

The spots also feature shoppers making purchases via mobile devices. “Mobile is where the online and offline worlds meet,” said Parham. In 2011, eBay’s mobile application was downloaded 70 million times.

Parham chats over dinner with Emma Qian, MBA 12

Over dinner, the group of five students had fewer than 70 million questions, but still quite a lot. For a relaxed two hours, they asked anything they wanted of eBay’s CMO—and in the course of the semester, each student has dinner with one speaker.

They wanted to know how Parham had charted her career, how eBay’s product organization is structured, how budgeting happens, how she achieves work/life balance, and what she looks for in hiring, to which she responded, “Know my business. Ask me questions that make me think. Don’t be afraid to break some glass.” Parham also shared thoughts on the importance of drawing youth, and girls in particular, to technology and about beloved collections (Barbie in her case, 80′s action figures for participating student Andrew Wisnewski, MBA 13).

As the evening wound down, Parham asked the group what they wanted to get out of the course and what they felt they got from her presentation. “For me this is a guide for how people who do marketing think about their customers, since I don’t have that background,” said Meredith Benedict, MBA 13. “It’s like getting all the lessons of a marketing class, but from real people.”

MBA Team Takes Third in Brand Management Challenge

Brand new winners (l. to r.): Nandita Batra, Agustina Sacerdote, Andrea Schalka, Gabe Cohen, Melissa Millan

Somewhere (though probably not on YouTube) is video of five Berkeley MBA students “dancing like crazy” in the wee hours at a pizza place. That would be the team of students competing in this past weekend’s Elite Eight Case Competition, using music to keep themselves alert in their 30^th hour of preparing their case analysis.

 Apparently it worked: Full-time MBA students Nandita Batra, Gabe Cohen, Melissa Millan, Agustina Sacerdote, and Andrea Schalka, all MBA 13, claimed third prize in the annual Carlson School competition. The team beat out Duke, Wharton, and Kellogg to bring home $3,000 and the mantle of Berkeley-Haas as an ongoing powerhouse in this invitation-only competition.

This year’s challenge was to modernize an 80-year-old food brand through a repositioning and marketing plan.

“Our goal was to leverage emotional connection with the brand, since its functional attributes were well known,” says Schalka.  She says the Berkeley-Haas team distinguished itself with its consumer insights and by ensuring consistency between the new positioning for the brand and the marketing plan that would activate it. Not to mention some sweet moves on the dance floor.

MBA Internships: Visa

Student: Amy Josephson, MBA 12

Interning with: Visa Inc, Foster City, CA

Thrilled to be with Visa because: It’s “a major global brand with tons of interesting areas to focus on as a marketer– from global brand strategy to Olympics sponsorship to innovative new payment solutions in the mobile and eCommerce space. “

Can’t believe she’s getting the chance to: Get exposure to the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) through intern executive breakfasts and project presentations with her team.

Already she’s learned: “How to prep a building for painting!” (through a Visa Volunteers day at a local elementary school.) She’s also gained good strategic frameworks for product marketing.

Advancing career goals by: “Applying strategic thinking to marketing in a way I haven’t done before.”

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Tell us in the comments below or share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

MBA Internships: ConAgra Foods

Student: Emily Battle, MBA 12

Interning with: ConAgra Foods, Boise ID

Thrilled to be with ConAgra because: She’s getting exposure to brand management for a CPG company and a glimpse into life as a brand manager. “I am learning a lot about mass agriculture and manufacturing while maintaining a focus on marketing strategy and execution.”

Can’t believe she’s getting the chance to: Work on a project that has a high level of visibility throughout the Board of Governors. “I am getting to interact with Sr. level management and present my recommendations to ConAgra’s President of Commercial Foods.”

Already she’s learned: “Brand management is ultimately about understanding your consumer and their needs.” She’s also discovering that brand managers “must have strong leadership skills in order to successfully manage cross-functional teams.”

Advancing career goals by: Gaining experience in the CPG industry in which she hopes to work. “This internship is a great way to work on projects that will be relevant during interviews.”

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Tell us in the comments below or share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

Marketing Matters

Marketing Officers Share Insights in New Speaker Series Course

Del Monte CMO Bill Pearce kicks off the series on February 9.

Experts who “thrive” and “think outside the bun” will share wisdom with students in the Full-Time MBA Program through a new course launching this spring: the Chief Marketing Officer Insight Series. The CMOs and senior marketing VPs who drive the thrive at Kaiser Permanente and shun the bun at Taco Bell will speak, as will marketing leaders from Levis, Yahoo!, Chevron, and more.

In addition to sharing insights and case studies from their organizations in a lecture, the marketing execs will join a small group of students for dinner after class and engage in additional mentoring. The 10-week course was developed by the Berkeley-Haas marketing area and will meet on Wednesdays from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Feb. 9 through April 20. See the full CMO speaker schedule for more details.

For more on marketing, check out the Haas Marketing Club, which offers case workshops, corporate day-on-the-job treks, and its own speaker series. Next up: Lunch and learn with Neutrogena on Jan. 19.

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

Better Directed, Better Connected

Haas Builds Up Finance, Marketing

Investment banking teach-ins and a new CMO speaker series course are two initiatives resulting from two new roles at Haas: The Finance and Marketing areas now have executive directors in place to oversee strategic programs. In addition to the positive impact on the student experience from such new programs, Finance and Marketing are now able to market more and conduct greater outreach to alumni and the business community, as well as expand partnerships with Career Services and Admissions.

Fulfilling these roles are Bill Rindfuss for Finance and Marjorie DeGraca for Marketing. Rindfuss came from a corporate finance career at JPMorgan and DeGraca added to her responsibilities as executive director of Evening & Weekend MBA Admissions. DeGraca is managing the launch of the new spring 2011 course, Chief Marketing Officer Insight Series. Rindfuss helped prepare students for investment banking internship interviews through a new series of teach-ins this past fall. This semester he is working with the finance faculty on the curriculum’s strategic direction.

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

Vrooom for Expansion

Apple Acquires Tesla—One Berkeley MBA Team’s Proposal

When Apple closed out its fiscal year with $51B in cash reserves, Berkeley MBA students applied themselves to the challenge of spending the loot. Student teams pitched ideas to Apple marketing executives at December’s Apple Technology Challenge, co-sponsored by the Haas Technology Club and the Digital Media and Entertainment Club.

Evening and weekend MBA students Sam Kanakamedala, Archit Lohokare, and Shone Tran, all MBA 13, claimed first prize for their suggestion that Apple acquire electric vehicle company Tesla Motors. Apple’s best opportunity for growth is to expand into new markets, the team reasoned. With Apple already claiming significant mindshare at home, school, work, and the gym, the car is a logical next avenue. The team saw Tesla and Apple as well matched for their similar successes in redefining how consumers interact with and use technology.

Team Tesla knew its idea had merit, Lohokare blogged, but supporting evidence was needed. The team pored over research on telematics, infotainment, and electric vehicles, never forgetting that this exercise was, “for all practical purposes, a strategy presentation to the product marketing executives at the largest technology company in the world.”

Read Lohokare’s blog post on the thrill of victory and view a video the team used in their presentation to Apple, illustrataing how the connected lifestyle gets disconnected in the car.

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

The Brand Prize

Berkeley MBAs Win Brand Management Challenge

Expecting to develop branding strategies for breakfast cereal or bottled water, a Berkeley MBA team hit a curve ball—right out of the park—successfully tackling an oil and gas B2B challenge to win the Elite Eight Brand Management Case Competition. Full-time students Alicia Chen, Anne-Elise Fettig, Jessica Huard, Vannie Shu, and Stephanie Tsai, all MBA 12, brought home $10,000 and the Haas School’s fourth victory since 2005 in this Carlson School competition.

The team was given 30 hours to create brand preference for Eaton, a components manufacturer in the oil and gas industry. “Our strategy was to divide the entire value chain into two types of customers—those that actually purchase and those that influence,” says Huard.

In choosing to address customers that wield influence as well as wallets, the Berkeley-Haas team beat out competitors that included Northwestern’s Kellogg, The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton, and Duke University’s Fuqua. Read more about this caffeine-fueled feat in a blog post by Stephanie Tsai.

Up next: MBA 11s Jeannette Gessler, Allison Gigliotti, Erika Heaton, Chitra Laxmanan, and MBA 12 Kristin Schaefer take on the Marketing Summit at Wake Forest in February. Last year 86 teams competed just to be one of eight participants. Berkeley-Haas has bagged a slot and an opportunity to meet a challenge posed by VF Corporation’s North Face Brand.

Elite 8 winners: Vannie Shu, Stephanie Tsai, Anne-Elise Fettig, Jessica Huard and Alicia Chen, all MBA 12

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.