2. Letter from the Chair

3. Cal Poly Brings Marketo To Classrooms

5. Marketing Career Conference Highlights

6. Alumni Success

7. New Faculty Join Marketing Area

2015 MARKETING NEWSLETTERCal Poly Orfalea College of Business

MARKETING MANAGEMENT

2015 MARKETING NEWSLETTER2

Ten years ago, Marketing area faculty unveiled an industry-facing curriculum founded on three foundational principles: decision-making informed by customer insights, innovation, and Learn by Doing. While these three pillars remain the cornerstones of the marketing program, we’ve worked with industry leaders to continuously evolve our programs and our brand.

Our brand promise: Cal Poly marketing cultivates agile marketers who integrate data analytics, critical thinking and creativity. We work with our task force members to identify the latest trends shaping marketing today. Our curriculum addresses industry innovations, helping

our students build essential skills in both analytic and creative aspects of marketing.

To achieve this promise, we have implemented several exciting reforms to our program.

1. A new minor in integrated marketing communications, introducing students to fundamentals of journalism and graphic design to enhance their marketing efforts.

2. New courses in digital media, social media and marketing analytics. Our latest talents to join the college, Professors Brennan Davis and Joachim Scholz, bring fresh perspectives and specialist expertise to our students.

3. Incorporate the latest technologies and industry principles, streamlining our graduates’ transition from academia to industry. Our partnership with industry leader Marketo enhances students’ Learn by Doing experience in marketing software fundamentals.

Ongoing efforts have strengthened the focus of the Cal Poly chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA). Guided programs in professional development connect students with networking opportunities across the industry before and after graduation.

We’re building a promising mentorship program for our Rising Stars — a select group of exceptional students nominated by marketing faculty — with business consulting firm TrustedPeer.

The synergy among our task force members, Rising Stars, AMA leaders, and faculty in accomplishing these initiatives showcases our commitment to industry relevance and ongoing student excellence. Our competitive advantage comes from the generous support of current, future and past members of our college community.

Marketing alumni reconnect with Cal Poly through much-needed financial support and professional insight initiatives. Whether mentoring students as an Executive in Residence or overseeing essential internships, connecting with Cal Poly enriches the marketing program and strengthens our expanding alumni network. To get involved today, contact marketing@calpoly.edu.

Lynn Metcalf

A L E T T E R F R O M A R E A C H A I R LY N N M E T C A L F

MARKETING AREA TASK FORCE• Tom Adamski, CEO, Razorfish Global• Stephanie Allen, Creative Marketing

Strategy Consultant, Entertainment Industry

• Vicki Amon-Higa, President, Amon-Higa & Associates

• Julie Henley (B.S., Business Administration, 2000), Henley Consulting

• Al Moffatt, President and CEO, Worldwide Partners Inc.

• Jeff Pulver (B.S., Business Administration, 1988), Vice President, Alliances EMEA, Workday

• Deb Wolf (B.A., English, 1988), Chief Marketing Officer, Lookout

MARKETING ANALYTICS TASK FORCE• Paul Barsch (B.S., Business

Administration, 1994), Marketing Director, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, Analytics, Cloud, Teradata

• Rex Briggs (B.S., Business Administration, 1993), CEO, Marketing Evolution

• Pete Kreiser (B.S., Business Administration, 1987), Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Core Logic

• Karissa Lee, Executive Director, Research Solutions, Screen Engine

• Dmytro Marushkevych, Director, Analytics & Optimization, Rosetta

SOCIAL MEDIA TASK FORCE• Sheila Bernus Dowd, International

Social Media Manager, GoDaddy• Shanna Cook, Social Media

Marketing Manager, Marketo• Ellen Curtis, Director, Social Media,

Rosetta• Sonia Fiorenza (B.S., Business

Administration, 1993), Executive Director, Manifest Social

• Doug Klein, Chief Strategy Officer, Finders Keepers

• Mary O’Connell, Senior Director, Global Digital Marketing, Social Media and Public Relations, Clorox

2015 MARKETING NEWSLETTER 3

In 2014, Cal Poly’s Marketing area took a strategic step forward in evolving its Learn by Doing curriculum trends and technologies that will impact its graduates. Marketing area Chair Lynn Metcalf officially announced an innovative partnership between Cal Poly and the automated marketing software powerhouse Marketo, with implications in the classroom and at other universities. Cal Poly’s Marketing area is the first and only university to use Marketo in the classroom.

“Our belief and motto has always been that students Learn by Doing and that practical, hands-on experience is a key contributor to career growth and success,” said Metcalf. “Our partnership with Marketo allows us to arm our students with cutting-edge marketing techniques and practices to ensure they are not only competitive and desirable candidates but also invaluable contributors to and leaders of any organization.”

The relationship began in the spring of 2014 when Marketo sponsored two on-campus marketing internships. Marketing Professor Jeff Hess helmed the project with the two students and a Marketo consultant to build the modules and tools students would use across a 10-week course.

During fall quarter, Dr. Hess debuted Marketo in a university classroom in BUS 419: Strategic Marketing Measurement, in which students drove a conceptualized marketing campaign,

C A L P O LY B R I N G S M A R K E T O T O C L A S S R O O M S

tackled large data sets, analyzed trends, and built an engagement plan responsive to customer behavior. The course empowers Cal Poly business students to master the platform and begin to understand data-driven decision making within a marketing strategy. The curriculum allows graduates to leverage experience with Marketo with their potential employers or even bring the software to new businesses they lead.

“Current Cal Poly students have a huge advantage in their future career by having Marketo experience,” said Jackie Gragnonla, alumna and demand generation manager at ClearSlide. “I began using the platform early in my career, and I know that so many students will realize how many doors it will open when they put it on their resume and secure interviews as a result.”

Marketo is a complement to the other data software Cal Poly continues to teach, including IBM’s SPSS, Google Analytics and Dialogr. Other courses also focus on platforms like Cision, Qualtrics, Survey Gizmo and Excel.

Marketo will use Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing curriculum as a model for its implementation at other universities throughout the nation. Back on campus, Cal Poly’s marketing program will use Marketo and other technology-centered resources in new classes in development.

The Orfalea College of Business will soon launch a minor in integrated marketing communications, combining courses in business marketing, graphic communication and public relations. Starting this fall, students will explore technologies and strategies necessary to acquire and leverage customer insights; create and deploy visual, graphic and written content across varied media channels; and analyze the resulting impact on marketing performance.

The curriculum is a response to industry trends that require marketing leaders to blend technical, creative and strategic skills together in integrated campaigns spanning traditional, social and new media. The program has already seen interest from students in programs across the university.

Companies recruiting Cal Poly marketing graduates have expressed a need for employees with this unique blend of expertise. Positions for recent graduates versed in these new media skills are abundant and growing, including roles in integrated media, content marketing, digital marketing, brand and visual storytelling, and analytics.

N E W M I N O R TA R G E T S M A J O R I N D U S T RY N E E D

Professor Jo Scholz, teaching a class on social media strategy

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Cal Poly’s American Marketing Association (AMA) chapter has become a vital link between marketing students and industry, taking students off campus to tour, network and experience a day at a number of California’s top corporations. In 2014 members had the chance to visit Citrix, Sonos, Appfolio, Symantec, Screen Engine and more on field trips that helped students see themselves leading marketing efforts on a grand scale. The Orfalea College of Business and Cal Poly took notice, recognizing the AMA’s efforts by naming it the 2014 Orfalea College of Business Best Club of the Year.

AMA has also made great strides in attracting industry leaders to campus through speaking opportunities at its popular weekly meetings and the annual Marketing Career Conference held each February. The conference has grown to host 20 companies with roughly twice the number of industry executives and recruiters. Today the event brings together Cal Poly’s top marketing students with professionals and alumni working in technology, healthcare and entertainment marketing for a fast-paced day of panel discussions, student pitches, and a keynote speaker exploring some of the industry’s biggest challenges. The event has also become a direct link for companies looking to source top marketing talent ahead of graduation.

Many marketing alumni stay connected to Cal Poly by lending support and insight to the AMA chapter. From participation in the Executive in Residence program to coordinating vital internships for students, reconnecting with Cal Poly enriches the marketing program and expands the alumni network. To get involved, contact president.calpolyama@gmail.com or visit www.calpolyama.org.

C A L P O LY A M A : T H E L I N K B E T W E E N C L A S S R O O M A N D B O A R D R O O M

AMA’s 2014–2015 Executive Board

CAL POLY CHAPTER SHINES AT 2015 AMA INTERNATIONAL COLLEGIATE CONFERENCE

In March, marketing students and faculty traveled to New Orleans for the 2015 AMA International Collegiate Conference. Cal Poly’s AMA chapter placed second out of 35 schools in the Strategic Allocation of Business Resources (SABRE) Business Simulation. SABRE provides the competitive environment in which students leverage market studies to make strategic product planning, sales force deployment, advertising, pricing, and research and development expenditure decisions about a simulated company. The exercise mimics one year in the marketplace, determining market share, product contribution and overall profit for each company.

The chapter also took second place for its video contest entry promoting Be The Match, AMA’s national philanthropic partner. Cal Poly students created an engaging mini-documentary to share stories about bone marrow donors and recipients whose lives have been changed forever by the organization. The videography team also captured interviews with Cal Poly’s Be the Match chapter president and edited the video together to promote the program on campus. View the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs4zruWDaeA.

AMA also recognized Cal Poly’s chapter for excellence in professional development, chapter planning and membership.

2015 MARKETING NEWSLETTER 5

SCENES FROM THE MARKETING CAREER CONFERENCE

Students line up at the 2015 Marketing Career Conference

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A L U M N I S P O T L I G H T STechnology practically runs in Becky Tanner’s family. While both her brother and father earned electrical engineering degrees from Cal Poly, she followed her natural instincts for collaborative problem-solving and studied marketing at the Orfalea College of Business. However, it wouldn’t be long before she found her way back to the family business of semiconductors.

Even as a freshman, Tanner saw how she could turn a business degree into a dynamic career rooted in teamwork. From leading her sorority Alpha Chi Omega to spearheading class projects, she took

every opportunity to work with clients, conduct research, and strategically plan for a bankable future. The key moment that helped Tanner put her knowledge to work was a summer internship at her family’s integrated circuit and semiconductor company, Maxim Integrated. Her biggest takeaways were about the real-world pace of marketing and the pressure to consistently deliver insights and strategies that would make an impact in the highly competitive space of business-to-business technology.

“I learned about team dynamics – and that nothing is done in a silo,” she said.

On campus, she brought that confidence and team-centered attitude to her group projects at Cal Poly. She stayed focused on the tech sector, working on a class project for Granicus, a cloud storage solution for government, led by industrial technology alumnus Tom Spengler. She also began building her professional network, a tight-knit group of friends, professionals and fellow alumni whom she could turn to for practice interviews, references and industry insights as she approached graduation. She accepted a position close to home at Maxim Integrated, working alongside her family and fellow Cal Poly alumni.

Since graduating, Tanner has blazed a new trail through Maxim Integrated, leading marketing operations, global branding, and now corporate marketing and events. From driving the company’s rebrand to orchestrating its global sales conference that debuted a new app to boost audience participation, she has continued learning, doing and accomplishing in true Cal Poly fashion. Today Tanner sees how the Learn by Doing philosophy makes graduates more prepared and willing to take the initiative to tackle challenges.

Her message to graduates today: build your network with people you can trust and seek perspectives different than your own to make you stronger.

Becky Hood TannerClass of 2001

Executive Director of Corporate Marketing & Events at Maxim Integrated

Marketing alumna Romy Taormina credits the success of her business in part to the Learn by Doing spirit she embraced at Cal Poly. The inspiration for her startup, however, came from a very different place. As she puts it, “I always knew I wanted to run my own business, but I had no idea that months of debilitating nausea would lead me there!”

After difficult morning sickness during her pregnancies, Taormina invented Psi Bands, fashionable acupressure wristbands that relieve nausea naturally. With target audiences like pregnant moms, cancer

survivors, and travelers sporting the product, Psi Bands have caught widespread media attention on Good Morning America, ABC’s Shark Tank, Oprah Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Looking back, Taormina says her attraction to entrepreneurship flourished during her time at Cal Poly. Determined to lead, she entered Cal Poly’s marketing program to combine her love for strategy and creativity. She learned to work with clients, speak publically with confidence, and build teamwork through her business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi. She also took internships with phone company GTEL and Mattel Toys to manage charitable efforts and direct marketing campaigns. “Hands down, they were both invaluable experiences,” she said. “Each experience, each new thing I tried, all culminated into a well-rounded education.” After graduation, Taormina turned that education into a fast-paced position in an advertising agency until the inspiration for Psi Bands moved Taormina to start her own venture.

Through a deep understanding of the essential technologies, strategies and tools of marketing, Taormina successfully launched Psi Bands. The university’s Learn by Doing approach allowed Taormina to take her business ideas from concept to execution to success fearlessly. As she puts it, “I run a business. I’m always Learning by Doing.” In addition to being an active mom, Taormina oversees operations at Psi Health Solutions Inc. She continuously returns to the fundamentals of team-building, organizational strategies, and sound marketing principles that she learned throughout her marketing education at the Orfalea College of Business.

Taormina encourages marketing students to seize the ample leadership opportunities available at Cal Poly through internships, extracurricular activities, and clubs like AMA. “Use your time in college to take risks, make mistakes, cultivate a positive attitude, and build a network of friends and peers to rely on outside of the classroom.”

Romy TaorminaClass of 1993

CEO, Co-Founder and Nausea Relief Chief of Psi Health Solutions Inc.

2015 MARKETING NEWSLETTER 7

FA C U LT Y P R O F I L E S

Early in his career, Brennan Davis joined the marketing development team at Nissan, but not to create advertising campaigns. Instead, Davis used massive amounts of consumer data and graphic information systems to drive the company’s efforts in selecting ideal dealership locations — a key component of the corporation’s business strategy. Davis was on the frontline of the “big data” analysis that he aims to teach students through new marketing analytics at Cal Poly.

When asked why he left the corporate world to teach, Davis said, “You feel like you’re multiplying your efforts with every student you invest in.”

Davis notes the college’s eagerness in incorporating the latest marketing strategies and hands-on learning as a main attraction for him. “You learn things by trying them out. That’s especially true with something so applied as marketing. You have to try and fail, and try and succeed before you truly understand what’s happening in marketing,” Davis says.

With experiential opportunities focused on a student’s career readiness, Davis feels Cal Poly marketing has a much higher degree of value than most universities. Davis has already begun innovating new curriculum by building undergraduate and master’s degree courses in Marketing Analytics while helping plan new graduate offerings in Business Analytics with Associate Dean of Graduate Programs Sanjiv Jaggia. These courses leverage essential data analytics software like Esri’s Geographic Information Systems mapping software and Tableau as students tackle data sets of all sizes to glean marketing insights. Davis’ Advanced Marketing Analytics course will debut later this year as part of the college’s Business Analytics professional certificate program.

Partnering with Professors Lisa Simon, Lynn Metcalf, Stern Neill and Sharon Dobson, Davis is reworking the Principles of Marketing course. Assisted by top-flight marketing student mentors, the course will include a “dynamic workshop format and embrace Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing.”

“The biggest need in marketing these days are people who have a balance of both of creativity and analytics,” says Davis about the future of data in marketing.

Brennan DavisAssociate Professor of Marketing

Hidden Talent: Playing guitar with his boys

• Ph.D. in Marketing, The Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine

• MBA, The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

• B.S. in Marketing, UCLA

Joachim Scholz brings diversified industry experience and a commitment to experiential learning to the Marketing area. Scholz is an academic veteran of Learn by Doing, having earned a business degree in Germany through an innovative hybrid program, alternating 10 weeks in the classroom with 10 weeks in the field.

As a student, Scholz became fascinated with understanding why consumers behave the way they do, a curiousity that persists today. His research explores two different aspects of consumer behavior: how people try to live in harmony with nature, and how they use social media and augmented reality technologies to form relationships with other consumers, brands, and the places around them. Scholz’s goals for 2015 include developing a social media and digital marketing course central to Cal Poly’s new integrated marketing communications minor.

Like many of his students, Scholz says Cal Poly is “the perfect spot for my ambitions.” He believes that the Orfalea College of Business is the ideal place to explore issues of sustainability, the human-nature relationship, and emerging technologies because of its close proximity to innovative companies in the San Francisco area and its unique location on the Central Coast.

“Personal branding is something I would encourage every student to start in their first year. Have a Twitter account, use content creation, collect articles. Pick your interest, and then provide value. This is how you really build your name, really build your online persona, and then, when you go out and interview for a job, the recruiter will not only know that you know stuff, but he or she will also know that you can demonstrate initiative.”

Joachim “Jo” Scholz Associate Professor of Marketing

Hidden Talent: Being crazy enough to dream big and reslient enough to pull it off

• Ph.D. in Marketing, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

• M.S. in Economic and Consumer Psychology with Distinction, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

• M.A. in Social Sciences (German Vordiplom), University of Mannheim, Germany

• M.A. in Business Science and Management, FH Nordakademie, Elmshorn, Germany

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STAY IN TOUCH

Lynn Metcalf Area Chair

Heather Gamble Administrative Coordinator

Amanda Santos Administrative Coordinator

Marketing Professors Norm BorinJeffrey DanesBrennan DavisJeff HessJoan Linsey-MullikinStern NeillJoachim Scholz

Adjuct Marketing FacultySharon DobsonLisa SimonMitch Wolf

MARKETING AREA

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805–756–1543

cob.calpoly.edu

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MARKETING MANAGEMENT