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Baruch Students Win ECHO Awards for the Fifth Year in a Row
New York, NY – June 26, 2007—For the third consecutive year, Baruch College graduate students won the first place Gold Award for the best-integrated direct/interactive marketing campaign in the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation’s (DMEF) 2007 Collegiate ECHO Competition. Baruch students took home four Gold Awards, four Bronze Awards and nine Honorable Mentions in several categories of the competition. A mix of 25 graduate and undergraduate schools competed in this year's contest.
The accolade marks a Baruch team’s fourth Gold Award since 2002; with 89 individual student ECHO awards in 5 years, Baruch boasts the most of any graduate business school in the country. The judges’ praise for Baruch’s Gold Award winners included: “Outstanding in all respects,” “Crisp presentation,” “Clear,” “Concise,” “Very good,” and “Congratulations on an excellent job.” The judges’ described Bronze Award winners work as: “A pleasure to read both academically and professionally,” with “Excellent writing and collaboration.”
Conducted since 1986, the competition allows teams to submit integrated marketing campaigns demonstrating applied scholarship in one of the fastest growing segments of media expenditures: direct and interactive. This year’s client was Litle & Co. — named Inc. Magazine’s 2006 fastest growing private company — which sought to generate leads and acquire customers for payment processing, its core business. With a $500,000 budget, the challenge required a multichannel campaign that included direct mail, email, web design, selling collateral, outbound telemarketing, trade show marketing and direct sales.
“The creative solutions offered by these students far exceeded our expectations, providing outstanding, insightful, and creative approaches that we will definitely implement in our upcoming campaigns,” Chris Long, Chief Marketing Officer of Litle said of the winners.
Regarding the Gold-winning team’s entry, Mr. Long went on, “This was the best entry of the entire competition. In some ways, it’s difficult for us to explain why this entry is so good; the team just seemed to ‘get it;’ they understood our business very well and all of their analysis and recommendations were very relevant. Very good ROI analysis (and we admit that this was a difficult case from an ROI perspective), very good Creative Brief, very good budgeting. All around, a pleasure to read.”
The Bronze-winning entry was, Mr. Long continued, “another excellent entry by Baruch College. The market needs analysis, segmentation analysis and competitive analysis were particularly good.”
“We are training the future leaders of the direct and interactive marketing media marketplace; I am particularly proud to note that 85 of those students who have won awards since 2002 including this year’s Gold and Bronze winners and five of the honorable mention winners, were all enrolled in my Direct and Interactive Marketing class, “ said Professor Harvey Markovitz, director of the Baruch’s Direct and Interactive Marketing Lab.
Baruch’s Marketing Lab,
founded by Professor Markovitz in 2003, is still the only one of its
type in the country. It was recognized for its academic excellence in a
discussion during the DMEF Board of Directors meeting during the Direct
Marketing Days of New York event last week, as a result of Baruch’s
students’ performance.
Litle
& Co. Chairman Tim Litle, in recognition of the efforts of all
winning Collegiate ECHO student teams, has created the Litle Awards
Fund, to be distributed through DMEF. Baruch’s Gold and Bronze team
members will be among the first recipients of this fund of $4,000 and
$1,000, respectively and each team sharing cash prizes among its
members. In addition, Baruch College will be presented in November
with Graduate Collegiate Gold ECHO and Graduate Collegiate Bronze ECHO
trophies.
Baruch’s winners are as follows:
Last Name, First Name Award
Bradford |
Nicoll |
Graduate Collegiate Gold ECHO |
Melinda |
Gonzalez-Mehfar |
Graduate Collegiate Gold ECHO |
Rebecca |
Coons |
Graduate Collegiate Gold ECHO |
Silvia |
Ivanova |
Graduate Collegiate Gold ECHO
|
Elena |
Bloch |
Graduate Collegiate Bronze ECHO |
Hoon Young |
Lee |
Graduate Collegiate Bronze ECHO |
Jung-Woo |
Lee |
Graduate Collegiate Bronze ECHO |
Urmi |
Dantwala |
Graduate Collegiate Bronze ECHO
|
Ramakrishnaan |
Balasubramanian |
Honorable Mention for Smartest Budgeting Approach -Graduate
|
Anastasia |
Ioannou |
Honorable Mention for Best Creative Execution –Graduate |
Chan W. |
Park |
Honorable Mention for Best Creative Execution – Graduate |
Gorkem |
Koroglu |
Honorable Mention for Best Creative Execution – Graduate |
Monique |
Marsh |
Honorable Mention for Best Creative Execution – Graduate |
Charles |
Paul |
Hon. Mention: Most Innovative Marketing Strategy – Graduate |
Eduardo |
Martinez |
Hon. Mention: Most Innovative Marketing Strategy – Graduate |
Irina |
Mayakova |
Hon. Mention: Most Innovative Marketing Strategy – Graduate |
Maciej |
Capala |
Hon. Mention: Most Innovative Marketing Strategy– Graduate
|
About Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF)
Headquartered in New York City, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF) works to attract, educate, and place top college students by continuously improving the teaching of world-class direct/interactive marketing and, thereby, expanding and enriching the talent pool of trained, market-ready direct marketers. Established in 1966 by members of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) who wanted to give something back to the community, DMEF is today a separate, 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that is supported solely by tax-deductible contributions from individuals, companies, and regional clubs and associations. Funds raised go toward a broad range of world-class educational programs.
Contact: Professor Harvey Markovitz, Director, Direct and Interactive Marketing Lab, (212) 529-1891, or Lara Moon, Communications & Marketing, (646) 660-6093.
DMEF Contact: Doug Berger, Director, Member Communications, (212) 790-1541.