Students place second at Vancouver, B.C., marketing competition

Three Western Washington University marketing students placed second in the Intercollegiate Marketing Competition that took place Feb. 22 to 24 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The team sent to the competition from Western included Shannon Gnagey of Edmonds, Kyle Sonntag of Kirkland and Selena Maisonpierre of Seattle.

The Intercollegiate Marketing Competition is an annual undergraduate marketing case competition organized by students of Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. Students from across Canada and the U.S. attend.

Students use their leadership, problem-solving and communication skills to come up with a solution to the contemporary marketing issue within three hours. Once finished, the students give a 20 minute presentation to a panel of judges and answer questions in a 10 minute Q-and-A session following the presentation. The issue given this year was about a Vancouver-based car-sharing cooperative called Modo.

Gnagey said the competition gave her a chance to take what she had learned in class and apply it to real life situations and create relevant marketing strategies.

“Even though it was a stressful day, after the competition our team smiled and Kyle said, ‘There's nobody else I'd rather have had one my team than you guys,’” Gnagey said. “I think that really summed up my experience.”

For more information, contact Ed Love at (360) 650-4614 or ed.love@wwu.edu.