12-10-2007: Chevrolet Selects Five Finalist Teams In 2007 College Marketing Challenge

DETROIT – For the second year in a row, the Chevrolet division of General Motors hosted a “Chevy College Marketing Challenge.” This year students competed to develop an integrated marketing communications plan about Chevy’s fuel saving technologies to reach 18 to 30 year-old buyers.

With the success of last year’s Chevy College Ad Challenge, and the winning HHR commercial which aired during the Super Bowl, Chevrolet has taken this year’s competition a step further – they have asked students to respond with their ideas about a single, very important issue – Chevy’s environmentally-friendly technologies. The competition this year challenged students through their college or university classrooms to create an integrated campaign, which could include traditional advertising, public relations, events and promotions, interactive assets, direct marketing, emerging media, grassroots programs, and customer retention/brand loyalty programs.

Five finalist teams were selected from among submissions sent to Chevrolet from students at colleges and universities across the country. Chevrolet and agency representatives reviewed the integrated marketing plans and selected the following five finalist teams:

• Douglas Groover, Jonathan Halso, Anthony Lambkin, Amanda Bull and Peter Kirschner of University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• Chris Higdon, Peter Moska, and Scott Rumble of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
• Andrea McMahon, LeighAnn Kinkead, Kristen Parden, Okeye Mitchell, and Rafael Gomez of University of West Florida
• Andrew Raffellini, Kim Thalmann, Michael Mondin, Robert Reh, and Megan Mones of Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut
• Abby Dineen, Stevland Polite, Elizabeth Kantner, and Shawn Engmann of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“Chevy offers a variety of fuel saving technologies across a wide array of vehicles to meet consumers’ driving and lifestyle needs. We were so excited to hear the students’ ideas and begin to understand better the ways to communicate this important information to buyers in their age group,” said Kim Kosak, Chevrolet General Director Advertising and Sales Promotion. “We’ve got great products to talk about - our current line up of high fuel economy cars and crossovers – 8 that get over 30 mpg, two million E85 FlexFuel vehicles on the road – and new this year are the Malibu Hybrid and first-ever full-size hybrid SUV – the Tahoe Hybrid, as well as future technologies such as the plug-in electric Volt and Fuel Cell vehicles. We’re eager to see what the students do with the information they’ve prepared about Chevy products and our fuel solutions for the final round of judging this week.”

The five finalist teams will receive an all-expense paid trip to Detroit, MI to present their case studies to senior Chevrolet management and agency representatives. The teams are competing for the chance to have their creative material become part of an integrated Chevrolet campaign; prize money and potential internships with Chevrolet, Campbell-Ewald (advertising), or McGinn MS&L (public relations) will also be awarded.