Courtesy Photo
The winning design for Bernice’s Hummus by UA students Trent Lamers, Shayna Boyster, Kristen Travis, Cameron Gosnell, Chris Talbert and Ryan Nickel.
A class of University of Arkansas students have been developing marketing campaigns with Northwest Arkansas start-ups as a way to provide real-world experience for the students.
The class, integrating marketing communications, is taught by Anne Marie Velliquette for upper-level marketing majors. Instead of learning from primarily lectures and text books, the students are tasked with providing an entire marketing campaign for a local business to potentially use.
In exchange for the students receiving real world experience, the companies get to use the marketing campaign materials for free at the end of the semester. The class is split up into creative teams, and each group is required to come up with designing three different advertisements. The goal is to make a professional looking ad that could be featured in any kind of magazine.
Core Brewing Company, a microbrewery in Springdale, Ark., was the first company the class worked with. The top three selections from the class featured tag lines such as “Man’s best friend,” — as the company mascot is a dachshund dog — and “A beer for any occasion.”
“We’re trying to do something that will help highlight the company, but also highlight the students as well, and they’ve done a great job.” Velliquette said. “Some of the ads by the groups look seriously professional. Some of these kids have mad Photoshop skills.”
For the fall 2014 semester, the class worked with Bernice’s Hummus, an organic and gluten-free hummus company that operates out of Fayetteville. The brand’s hummus can be found locally at Ozark Natural Foods, Harps, and Marvin’s IGA. The company has two main flavors, Bernice’s Heavenly — a mild hummus — and Bernice’s Hellacious — their spicy version. The students were tasked with marketing both of the flavors.
After a semester of working with the company on an effective ad, Bernice’s Hummus chose a simplistic style that featured the tag lines “Hummus with a kiss” for the Heavenly, and “Hummus with a kick” for the Hellacious flavor.
“We wanted to do something creative and really personalize the product,” said Trent Lamers, one of the students behind the winning ad.
Another student group came up with the hashtag “#showushowyouhummus” to use as a social media marketing campaign along with the ad posters.
“The class gave us a touch of what it’s actually going to be like when we start designing ads for some of these companies,” Lamers said. “I also think the class was great because it gave me a great experience to ad to my resume for potential employers when I graduate.”
Eventually, the companies will potentially use the student-made ads in professional publications once they are able to afford promoting a marketing campaign, Velliquette said.
