Marketing for a good cause

A marketing class partners with hockey and the WISE shelter

Students gather in support of the canned food drive located in the Wink Arena during the hockey game on Friday. Photo by: Amelia Reed | Torch Photographer

Sports marketing 420 partnered with the WISE Women’s Shelter and the Ferris Hockey team for a canned food and donation drive last week.

This effort was used to help those projected to use WISE Women’s Shelters facilities during the coming Thanksgiving.

The canned food drive began Monday, Nov. 1, in the University Center on campus and continued until Saturday, Nov. 6, concluding the weekend’s second game.

In the UC and at the game, the marketing team met students and staff, where they spread awareness of WISE Women’s Shelter and informed students of the hockey games this past weekend, encouraging them to attend. They then incentivized people to attend the games with raffle options and a silent auction.

“We had a really great turnout with the canned food drive,” general manager of the project, Jennifer Cameron said.“We had 23 entries in the raffle; many people received multiple entries due to how many cans they turned in.”

The sports marketing class was also able to attain donations to use for the silent auction. According to Nolan Hubbard, head of game-day operations for the class, these donations came from a friend of his, who owns a sports store in Lavonia called Pro Sports Zone. In addition, the marketing class forced those interested in the silent auction to attend the second game on Saturday, for the auction didn’t open until then. According to Cameron, this was a tactic to get more people at the hockey game.

“This week has been a lot more successful than we anticipated,” Katherine Gilligan, director of marketing and advertising, said. ”Just due to the fact that our class is a lot smaller than the normal size per semester. We have ten people in our class, and we usually have around 25 each semester. So we are a ten-person crew doing work of thirty people, and it still turned out great.”

Gilligan credits her professor, Dr. Jina Jackson Rockwell, for her team’s success; although she claims her classmates did excellent work, it was her professors’ firm expectations and guidance that propelled the team through the challenge.

The team projects’ that at least 100 people were influenced by their marketing tactics to attend the hockey game. These same people were also made aware of WISE Women’s Shelter in the process.

The sports marketing classes’ work paid off, as the student section was comfortably filled, providing a glimpse of what the old Dawg Pound ounce was. This energy and attendance carried over into the game, Ferris pulling away with a 2-1 victory over Minnesota State on Friday. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, they could not clinch the weekend sweep and lost 5-1 at Saturday’s game. On the other hand, the sports marketing class raised roughly 150 cans and $605 in charitable donations for WISE Women’s Shelter.