McCombs School of Business
News : Releases :  Marketing

July 1, 2003
Students Earn Scholarship Money from Honda

 
The Honda Element

For 11 undergraduate business students, the spring 2003 semester was a crash course in the real world as they created a working marketing agency to research, implement, and evaluate a promotional campaign for the new Honda Element. Trying to reach “Generation Y” with its new gateway vehicle, Honda instituted the Honda Element College Program, which challenged teams of students across the country to create the best marketing campaign for the new vehicle. The McCombs BBAs, who worked under lecturer Herb Miller, made it to the finals and won a $5000 scholarship from the American Marketing Association.

Also See

Original article: Honda Teams with Students to Market SUV

At the end of June, five undergraduate McCombs marketing students returned victorious from HondaUSA corporate headquarters in Torrence, CA, where they were competing against two other schools for a scholarship. While judges did not select McCombs as the top team in the competition to develop a marketing campaign for the Honda Element, Honda executives were so impressed with all three finalists that they awarded each of the teams the $5,000 American Marketing Association scholarships originally intended for the contest winners.

The students who made the presentation were part of an 11-student independent study group advised by Herb Miller, senior lecturer in the Marketing Department at the McCombs School.

“What was so impressive about the McCombs students is that they did this as an independent study,” said Miller. “The other teams were part of classes that worked on the project together all semester.”

The finalists—from McCombs at The University of Texas at Austin, the Marshall School at the University of Southern California, and the University of Colorado—were selected from among 29 competing colleges and universities to present at Honda’s corporate headquarters.

For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.