Jones School of Management to host fourth annual marketing competition

Jones
School of Management to host fourth annual marketing competition

BY MICHELLE WIDMER
Special to the Rice News

MBA students
from top business schools in the country will converge at
Rice University to prove their marketing know-how in the
fourth annual Marketing Case Competition hosted by the Jesse
H. Jones Graduate School of Management Jan. 16-18.

Teams of MBA
students hailing from the University of Chicago, University
of California at Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan State, University
of Michigan, Northwestern University, Rice, Columbia, MIT
and Yale will compete for $10,000 prize money.

Each of the 10
teams will be given a business case study upon their arrival
Friday and have until Saturday evening to analyze and create
a marketing plan. After completing their in-depth analysis
of the case and preparing recommendations, each team will
present its recommendations to a distinguished panel of
judges Sunday, Jan. 18, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., in the Jones
School building.

“The competition
is a rare opportunity to witness how students from the top
business schools solve a unique marketing dilemma,”
said Genefer Brice, MBA ’04, student coordinator of
the competition. “A benefit for MBA students is networking
with other business schools and sponsors.”

Sponsors for
this year’s event include Shell, AIG, ExxonMobil, HP
and Riviana Foods.

Since its inception
in 2000, the Jones Marketing Case Competition has drawn
MBA students from nationally recognized graduate business
programs. In 2002, teams analyzed a case involving the Hilton
Honors Loyalty Reward program. Last year, the case focused
on Centra Software.

For more information
about the competition, contact Michelle Widmer at <widmerm@rice.edu>.

—Michelle
Widmer is an MBA student at the Jones School.