Thanks to Pfizer employee and MBA student Anita Hernandez, the Women’s MBA Association & the UR MBA program were featured at the company’s Employee Diversity Day two weeks ago. Here’s what Anita had to say about the event:
“The University of Richmond’s MBA Women’s Association was one of many sponsors showcased at the newly acquired Pfizer Consumer Health care Plant (formerly Wyeth) in Richmond, Virginia, Thursday, October 22nd. Pfizer was celebrating their “Exploring our Community” themed Diversity Day by hosting organizations from around the Richmond community. The University of Richmond’s MBA program coordinator, Lois Vogle, along with several current Pfizer employees - Anita Hernandez (current MBA student, Social/Networking Chair of the Women’s MBA Association) & Samantha Brock (Alumni of the MBA program, Member of the Women’s MBA Association), spoke with employees on the benefits of joining the MBA program at University of Richmond, emphasizing the fact that it is never too late to go back for your MBA. Ms. Lois Vogle had many employees interested in attending her “Lunch with Lois” events to gather more information on the program and to meet current students and alumni. The event ran all day, and many brochures were picked up by interested employees, hoping to take advantage of tuition benefits offered by Pfizer. All in all, the event was highly attended, and it was said to be the best diversity day ever held at the plant. Through attending these events, University of Richmond and its Women’s MBA Association, continue to play an integral part in helping to broaden the knowledge and experience of the employees working in companies around the Richmond community.”
Thank you Anita, Samantha and Lois for your work on this great event!
We learned that Richmond was again included among the top 20 part-time MBA programs when BusinessWeek unveiled its rankings last night. The Richmond MBA moved from fourth to third in the mid-Atlantic region and was the only program in Virginia to make the top 50.
At #17 nationally, Richmond is a few spots ahead of Ohio State, USC, Texas and NYU. Our faculty earned a well-deserved A+ for its teaching quality and student respondents gave the same grade when asked about the caliber of their classmates.
The full rankings table can be found here — http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/ptmba_rankings_2009/.
John B. Adams, CEO of The Martin Agency, spoke at a recent business school breakfast. He shared some powerful insights on new realities for marketers. Here are three themes:
1. Integrated marketing must evolve into unified marketing. At first, this sounded like merely a fresher buzzword, but the point is that agency functions should become more collaborative, just as marketing messages are blending more closely with the media that contain them.
2. All advertising is becoming direct-response advertising. Consumers are researching and making decisions in less predictable processes, due in large part to interactive media. For example, a consumer may consult friends’ opinions, and several user-generated reviews online. He may be ready to make a purchase decision before engaging with a single ad. This means that image advertising is less valued, and every marketing communication needs a behavior-changing call to action.
3. The nature of storytelling is changing – from a single story for a brand to multiple stories.
My overall takeaway: Interactive media gives consumers abundant choice for how they consume marketing communications, and for how they select products and services. It’s all done on the consumers’ terms.
The challenge for marketers – or any provider of a product or service – is to gain deep insight into the target consumer, offer truly helpful, relevant products, and tell compelling, helpful stories that amplify the product.
Wait a second…shouldn’t that have been the challenge all along?
