Twenty ASU honors marketing students presented their marketing plan for the car-truck hybrid Honda Element to advertising executives Tuesday as part of a 28-university contest.
The top two schools will face off at the Honda headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in June, with the winning team receiving a $5,000 scholarship.
The students were told to create a program that would make young people aware of the Element. While other university groups focused on one marketing event, ASU hosted four, spending more than 20 hours a week for three months on the project.
"It seemed like we had so many good ideas that we couldn't do just one," said coordinator Alicia Burgmeier, a marketing sophomore.
The group set up booths to showcase the Element at locations including the Student Recreation Complex and a Phoenix Suns charity basketball tournament.
"We feel like we got business students, ASU residents and athletes with the four events," said coordinator Ricardo Vasquez.
Bud Axberg, account supervisor for the Honda advertising company RP Alpha, said the project's ambition made it competitive.
"They're all different, but the four-event campaign made it stronger than the ones that were just on campus," Axberg said.
Burgmeier said although the project was more than she'd bargained for, she was proud of it.
"It was a lot of late nights and early mornings, but it's definitely rewarding to see it come to an end like this," Burgmeier said.
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Reach the reporter at garrett.neese@asu.edu.
