This is the golden age of marketing
With digital-savvy consumers, mountains of customer data, and more ways to reach your audience than ever before, marketing is going through exciting transformation. During this three-semester program we bring the top 15–20 Tippie marketing students together, and with a combination of skill-building curriculum and real-time projects, we help them launch their marketing careers.
How does it work?
The three-semester program is broken down to help scholars progress into top marketing recruits. You'll start by learning the soft skills that you need to confidently execute your field immersion project. Later, you'll complete the institute with a finished consulting project that will actually affect your client's business.
Once admitted to the Marketing Institute, you will register for the Scholars Seminar. This course focuses on developing the confidence and professional skills that you'll need for your year-long project. Executives from leading corporations will visit your seminars to share their career experiences with you.
As part of your first semester, you'll be assigned "mini field projects." Through these projects, you'll get a glimpse of what's in store for the year ahead.
To kick off the fall semester, you will be assigned your field immersion project. We'll team you up with three to four people based on your individual strengths and interests, and you'll formally meet your client and develop an agreement on project expectations. From here, you'll focus on primary research that will lead to your final recommendations your client.
During this semester, you will also be assigned an advisory board mentor as well as an alumni mentor. Your advisory board member will give you the chance to build a relationship with a Fortune 500 executive.
The final stretch of your field immersion project. Your team will focus on secondary research and extracting your final implications and recommendations for your client. You'll complete the institute with a final presentation to your client and the Marketing Institute Advisory Board.
Field immersion projects
Our field immersion projects (which satisfy the Tippie RISE requirement and fulfill a marketing elective) make us like no other institute in the Big Ten. Real clients seek our services to fix their bottom-line marketing problems. Through these year-long projects of rigorous research, our high-performing teams of scholars deliver outcomes that will affect their clients for years to come.
Below are a few examples of the many projects the Marketing Institute consulting teams have worked on over the years.
CAMBUS
Cambus is the free bus service that gives 4.5 million rides per year to the University of Iowa community. The project involved rebranding CAMBUS and creating a marketing and communication strategy to increase awareness of student driver job opportunities.
City of Maquoketa
Despite being the largest city and county seat of Jackson County, the number of tourists to Maquoketa has remained relatively stagnant since 1990. The City of Maquoketa asked for a new branding strategy and communication plan to increase tourism in the area.
The Moen Group/The Gym
The Gym is a downtown Iowa City fitness center owned by the Moen Group. It underwent major renovations and upgrades to make it a premier facility for downtown employees and residents. The goal of this project is to create a marketing strategy to attract new members.
Toyota of Iowa City
Create a marketing plan that utilizes new promotional channels, messages, and tactics to increase customer base among millennials.
Featured Project — Fox Sports University
In the Spring of 2017, Marketing Institute students at Tippie College of Business took on a real life marketing challenge through Fox Sports University. The goal was to create awareness of Home Team Sports, a B2B sales unit of Fox Sports. One team from Tippie pitched a strategy that stood out from the rest, earning them the opportunity to see their ideas embraced, produced, and put to use by the network. Watch the video to see their story, then read Taylor Delapa's account of the experience.
Apply to the Marketing Institute
The Marketing Institute is now accepting applications. The deadline to apply is October 1. Students who have successfully completed Marketing Strategy (MKTG: 3000) or are currently enrolled in and successfully complete Marketing Strategy by the time Marketing Institute coursework begins in the spring are eligible to apply. Students are also required to declare marketing as a major and have at least three semesters remaining before graduation to be eligible.
Experts on board
The Marketing Institute Advisory Board guides our organization to excellence by offering expertise in their fields. Companies represented on our board include Hormel Foods, Amperage Marketing, Neiman Marcus, Principal Financial, and Mead Johnson. Contact us to join our advisory council.
Excellent internships
100% of our scholars perform summer internships following their junior year. We offer internship guidance that sets our students on a level above their marketing peers. If you have interest in providing summer internship opportunities to a capable Marketing Institute Scholar, contact us.
Top-notch employees
Institute scholars are sought after because they perform their first day on the job. Our students have launched careers with companies like Accenture, Target, SC Johnson, Hormel Foods, Mead Johnson, and Best Buy. We are happy to arrange interviews with our students at your convenience, on or off campus.
Support the Marketing Institute
We're able to provide career-launching marketing projects and cutting-edge curriculum thanks to generous endowment gifts and donations. We rely on your support to keep our institute moving forward in its mission to prepare and produce career-ready marketers.
Unlimited opportunities
Whether managing accounts for a tech firm or working as a stylist/social media marketer for an upscale clothier, Talib Al-Sammarraie, BBA Marketing, draws on the experience he gained through Iowa’s Marketing Institute.
This exclusive program turns top marketing students into big-time business consultants. On top of internships, networking events, and special courses, students like Talib graduate with a proven record of working with both billion-dollar companies and start-ups.
“Think of it: all that as an undergrad student! You don’t get to do that at just any college.”
Contact
Peggy Stover
Associate Professor of Practice and Director, Undergraduate Marketing Institute
peggy-e-stover@uiowa.edu