Students attend IAB MIXX Conference 2012

The IAB MIXX Conference took place at the Carlu in downtown Toronto last week and Humber students were once again invited to attend. The theme of the 2012 conference was Fighting for Attention: How Brands Win which focused on how brands are using new and interesting ways to make sure that they remain current and "front and centre" (http://www.mixxcanada.com/)

The conference featured some great speakers who are truly embracing the new ways that they can reach customers. These are companies that are not afraid to put the gloves on and fight to gain customer trust and loyalty.  This year's fearless speakers included:

• Bryan Johnston, CMO, The Ultimate Fighting Championship, ZUFFA (LLC) USA 
• Justin Kingsley, VP Strategy + Partner, Sid Lee (CAN)
• Sherrill Mane, SVP Industry, IAB US (USA) 
• Joan Fitzgerald, Vice President, TV and Cross-Media Solutions, comScore (USA)
• Mark Greenspan, Community Director, Next Media (CAN) 
• Tom Fotheringham, Director, Digital Solutions, OMD (CAN)
• Tara Walpert Levy, Global Director of YouTube Ads Marketing, Google (USA

While each speaker talked about the importance of the use of new technologies to reach potential and current customers one of the speakers that I found to be the most engaging  was Tara Walpert Levy of Google. Walpert Levy discussed the importance of video for reaching customers of today. In fact, according to Levy "90% of internet traffic next year will be video." (Levy, IAB MIXX 2012) 

During her presentation Levy told attendees that they have to make video work for them. They need to: 

• move hard to reach audiences
• act on new consumer insights 
• drive loyalty in an active community in an ongoing way

She gave the audience the perfect example, Justin Bieber. Bieber is the perfect example of making video and the internet work for you and ensuring that the web is what you make it. According to Levy, and I'm sure that Bieber's millions of fans would agree; Justin Bieber is "a master brand builder in today's digital age and he has built his brand almost entirely in digital." (Levy, IAB MIXX 2012)

Along with Walpert Levy, another highlight of the conference for many students was the presentations from Justin Kingsley and Bryan Johnston of Sid Lee and The Ultimate Fighting Championship.
It was interesting for students to learn that both UFC and Georges St. Pierre do not attract the audience that most precieve them to. In fact, "UFC attracts the second most affluent audience after the PGA and airs in more than 500 million households."(Johnston, IAB MIXX 2012).

Not only has UFC created a extensive world wide following but so has Georges St-Pierre by teaching his fans seven important lessons:

• Surround yourself with people better than you so you can become better
• What gets measured gets done
• Love the haters, fans will take care of them for you
• Give your fans something to do 
• Show your weaknesses 
• Be honest and generate more love and appreciation from your fans
• Turn struggle into an opportunity

Take a look at this video to see how Georges St- Pierre and Sid Lee have helped fans connect with Georges brand. 

-Rachel 

Welcome Back!

As the last weekend of summer draws to a close it is time to start thinking about back to school and what the 2012/2013 school year has in store. There is always a lot to think about as the new school year begins; what classes to take, how many classes to take, what books to buy, what events to attend, what clubs to join and if you are new to campus how to find out where you have to go!

Humber has some great resources for new and returning students to help with all of these back to school questions:

1) The registrar and program coordinators can tell you what classes are required for your diploma or degree or you can also go online and take a look at your specific program. See the Business Marketing Program link below:
http://www.humber.ca/program/business-marketing#curriculum

2) The bookstore has a list of required textbooks for each program and you can also order your textbooks online and pick them up from the bookstore once classes start!
http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?catalogId=10001&langId=-1&demoKey=d&storeId=10303

3) Finally, the Humber Students' Federation or HSF offers many events and clubs that you can participate in throughout the year. The events are listed in a calendar on the HSF website by month. In September, be sure to check out Frosh Week from September 4-7 and Clubs Fair at North Campus September 19 and at Lakeshore Campus September 20.
http://humberlife.com/

For marketing students, there are a number of great conferences and events that can be attended depending on which classes you are taking in a given semester, but each year Humber participates in The Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition or OCMC, which takes place each year in the fall semester with recruitment taking place each April. The team for OCMC 2012 has already started actively preparing to show off their skills at this year's competition in November!

The Humber OCMC team is selected each year in April and the selection process consists of 'tryouts' or presentations for each event toward the end of the winter semester. Those interested in joining the Humber OCMC team must attend a mandatory information session where they are told about the competition and what each event entails. From there, each person selects the top two events that they wish to participate in. The audition process differs for each event. For the case events each person must present a solution to a problem with a given marketing case to a panel of faculty followed by a short Q&A session. The entire presentation can only be 5-7 minutes. For the job interview and sales presentation, students are given a job posting or item that they must prepare a presentation or interview for. Quiz Bowl consists of tryouts where the top 4-5 people who acquire the most points are selected for the team.

OCMC takes place over two days in November and allows students the opportunity to improve their public speaking, presentation and networking skills through a series of events. The two day competition consists of the following events:

• Quiz Bowl: this event is kind of like Jeopardy. This year's team consists of 5 members. 
• Sales Presentation: 1 member of the team is responsible for this presentation. 
• Job Interview: 1 member of the team is responsible for the job interview. 
• Case Competitions: there are 8 case competitions  which take place on day two of the event. Each case topic is prepared by a team of two.  The topics for the case competition include:
• Marketing 
• Retail 
• Entrepreneurship
• Integrated Marketing Communications
• Account Management 
• International Marketing 
• Market Research 
• Direct Marketing 

The Humber OCMC team is selected each year in April and the selection process consists of 'tryouts' or presentations for each event. Those interested in joining the Humber OCMC team must attend a mandatory information session where they are told about the competition and what each event entails. From there, each person selects the top two events that they wish to participate in. The audition process differs for each event. For the case events each person must present a solution to a problem with a given marketing case to a panel of faculty followed by a short Q&A session. The entire presentation can only be 5-7 minutes. For the job interview and sales presentation, students are given a job posting or item for which they must prepare a presentation or interview. Quiz Bowl consists of tryouts where the top 4-5 people who acquire the most points are selected for the team.

As a member of the 2012 OCMC team I am very excited that we are underway with this year's competition preparations.

As you can see, Humber offers students many opportunities to get involved and make the most of their time on and away from campus, so get involved and take advantage of these great opportunities

-Rachel