Almost everyone has seen this logo for McCormick Spices.
The company has 26 plants around the world, sells in over 100 countries and the man at the helm
is CEO Alan Wilson, a 1980 graduate of the College of Communications at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
I learn, certainly, the technical skills, but the important thing is I learned how to learn.
Wilson and other McCormick executives are hoping to learn from UT's senior advertising major and get ideas for future marketing campaigns.
In turn, they are giving Margie Morrison's Advertising 470 class some great experience.
Four teams of students drafted their own integrated marketing campaign for McCormick and company
Incorporating advertising, public relations and sales promotions.
The students presented their campaign to a panel of judges that included Wilson and other executives.
Even though the students put a lot of work and research into the their campaigns,
presenting their ideas for how to make McCormick's future brighter to the CEO and other company leaders was pretty stressful.
Presenting to the executives was really hard and very nerve racking. I actually blanked out for a little bit.
Despite all their nervousness, the students feel like all their hard work and distress really paid off.
going though the entire process of presenting to a huge company and bringing everything that you have learned throughout your entire college career together just for this one huge event,
it really just gets you geared up for the real world.
You know where you are going, you know when you get there that you can actually accomplish these tasks that you will be given.
And all in all, I'm glad I was able to do it.
I was very impressed with the way the students did the research, came up with some really creative ideas
explored the heritage of the brand and had some great recommendation on how to
communicate to their target audience. Every group had very strong elements.
In the end, Team Innovative Expressions Incorporated won best overall campaign.
I think this campaign is a great idea. It really helps us culminate and add everything we have learned
from all our classes together into one. It gives us a great real world experience and I think it is awesome they give us the opportunity to present to real clients.
that just really helps us see a real world situation right before we are going to graduate. So I think that is a great benefit that UT offers us.