Before many of them start their first internship, BYU Marriott School of Business MBA students who take MBA 657: Brand Management Strategy already have hands-on experience solving problems for brands. Whether students are brainstorming sweet solutions for Hershey’s, venturing into challenges facing Indian Motorcycle, or analyzing dilemmas other companies face depends on the semester; what’s constant is the chance to act as a brand manager in real-world situations.
Giving students experience working with brands is the goal of the course, explains MBA Associate Director Mike Bond, who came to teach at BYU Marriott after more than a decade of industry experience. Even though he had earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and an MBA, he sensed some gaps in his training as he entered the workplace. "When I developed my curriculum at BYU Marriott, I thought, 'I'm going to take all the good that I learned from my MBA experience, and then I'm going to try to fill in any voids that I didn't get,’” Bond says.
To fill in those voids, Bond collaborates with a company each semester to provide students with an eight-week consulting experience. The class is divided into teams of five students, and each team works to tackle the issue that the company is facing.
Bond says that having seven teams approach the same problem gives companies a variety of options. “It’s amazing how different the teams’ recommendations are when they come back,” Bond says, “and so it's really fun to see companies take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and merge them together.”
Parker Hendricks, an MBA student from St. Louis, had been looking forward to MBA 657 since he took a class from Bond during his undergrad, which initially sparked his desire to be a brand manager. “In the class, we had a real-world experience where we got to make recommendations using real data and insights,” Hendricks says. “It wasn’t just learning the concepts or hearing about experiences that Bond has had but also putting them into practice.”
The summer after he took the class, Hendricks began an internship with Newell, working on the Sharpie brand. When he wasn’t sure where to start, Hendricks went back to his final review slides from the class and decided to do a brand analysis. He presented his work to his manager, and he received positive feedback. "Bond’s class gave me more ways that I could look through and analyze and solve a business problem," Hendricks says.
In addition to learning technical skills, Hendricks also gained insights about working with others. “A brand manager is kind of like the quarterback of the brand,” he says. “It’s not just being able to implement the skills that I’ve learned, but also being aware of who I know at the company and who I can get to know so I can become a better brand manager.”
Liz Frost had just secured a summer internship with Hershey during her first semester in the MBA program when she was encouraged to take the course. “I was told that I was going to use everything from Mike Bond’s class to be successful in my internship,” recalls Frost, a recent MBA graduate. “The class was this opportunity to almost have a practice run.”
Having a practice run especially mattered for Frost, who had previously worked in speech-language pathology and felt less experienced in marketing. As her team worked on a project with Chips Ahoy, she felt amazed by the growth she experienced. “I went from knowing nothing about marketing to not only learning frameworks but also implementing them in this really cool project,” she says. “I used so many of the frameworks from this class to help me be successful in my internship.”
After completing her internship, Frost received a full-time offer as an associate brand manager at Hershey’s. She believes that the class was not only a good learning experience for her but also helped build connections with companies. “I think the class gets BYU Marriott out there as a place that produces students that are going to produce amazing quality work,” she says.
From Bond’s experience teaching the class, he would agree. “I’ve never had a problem rehiring any of the companies we’ve worked with,” he says. “The companies see value and our students see value. It’s a really nice win-win.”