My Time at the AMA Collegiate Conference

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April 8, 2011

AMA Collegiate Conference

March 24 – March 26

33rd Annual American Marketing Association (AMA) Collegiate Conference

I’m the marketing intern here at Whole Brain Group, and I spent the last week of March at the 33rd Annual AMA Collegiate Conference. The AMA is a professional organization for individuals who LOVE marketing.I’m also the Vice President of the University of Michigan – Dearborn Collegiate Chapter of the AMA. Our chapter competed against hundreds of other Universities on a fully developed marketing plan for Nintendo – Marketing to the Wii Generation. We also competed on our fund raising and community outreach efforts, as well as our communications, professional development, recruitment, and general chapter operations.

All of the Universities also participated in a t-shirt competition. The best t-shirts were the ones that kept the Nintendo theme of the conference. I think the most popular slogan was: Wii are the Future.

The conference was held is the great city of New Orleans. This city truly is alive! The culture, the music, the people, and the food is amazing. Live musicians performed on the street, the average temperature this time of year is 80 degrees, alligator tastes like sausage, and craw fish is actually really delicious.

The best seminar I attended was How to Get a Job in Advertising Today. This session was all about Twitter!! We learned how to use social media (and how not to use it) to capture attention of big advertising agencies who receive hundreds of resumes. Tom Martin, founder of Converse Digital and speaker for this series gave the best advice: “Friends do not tag friends.”

We also attended a team building session. It took lifting nearly 100 students into the air and through a crazy life sized spider web for us to learn the importance of looking out for one another and not just ourselves.

Our team came home with three awards – Outstanding Chapter Planning, Outstanding Fundraising, and Outstanding Communications – not bad for such a small school.

The best part of the conference was networking with marketing students from all over the United States. I think the lesson we all learned from this conference was that traditional marketing and advertising are changing – social media is now the best way to capture your target market and reach millions of people. I can’t wait to see what happens next year.

Christine Hymes is the marketing intern at The Whole Brain Group.

You can find her on LinkedIn.