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58 BizEd JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015 ideas in action Battling for the Brand BY LAMAR JOHNSON BUSINESS SCHOOLS OFTEN arrange for their students to complete real-world consulting projects, but the companies they work for are under no obligation to act on their recommendations. It's a different story with a program at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. As part of McComb's Dr Pepper Snapple Group Marketing Labs (DPSG), MBA students participate in practicums in which they're placed directly in charge of one of DPSG's US$100 million brands. Full-time MBA students in the second or third semester of their programs can apply to participate through the Center for Consumer Insight and Marketing Solutions (CCIMS) Marketing Fellows program. It was a group of Fellows, in fact, who pushed to obtain the oppor- tunity to manage real brands for one of CCIMS's four sponsoring companies— they wanted to have a more in-depth experience than a short-term consulting project would allow. They worked with Jim Trebilcock, executive vice president of marketing for Dr Pepper/Snapple. In spring 2012, a student team began to run DPSG's Yoo-hoo brand. For the past three years, McCombs students have identified growth opportunities, conduct- ed consumer research, identified target audiences, developed a strategic market- ing plan, obtained approval of that plan from senior management, created a com- prehensive brand story, evaluated results, and presented final recommendations. As students graduated, new students were chosen to continue their work. Students' management of the Yoo-hoo brand has progressed from analysis to execution, so that the company now has assigned a full-time team to implement their plan. Students selected for the pro- gram in 2015 will begin work on Squirt, a different DPSG brand. Getting real-world brand manage- ment experience "motivated me to be even more analytically driven, and strengthened my marketing gut and ability to solve problems," says Ashley Weber, an MBA graduate. The school has expanded the program with "Supply Chain Labs," scheduled to begin in January with Dell. Students will develop a supply chain forecasting system, manage its implementation, and work on a social media strategy—a proj- ect expected to take two years. Lamar Johnson is the director of the Center for Customer and Marketing Insight at the McCombs School of Busi- ness at the University of Texas at Austin. Banding Together to Make a Difference The Big 12 Conference views itself as more than a sports league, but it will leverage its large following of sports fans to let the rest of the world know how it's making an impact on the world. In October, the conference entered the second phase of a three-year integrated "Making a Difference" marketing campaign focused on academic achievement and research endeavors among its ten member institutions. The new campaign features 11 public ser- vice announcements that will be broadcast on ESPN and Fox Sports through March 2015. Each one highlights academic achievements and research produced by member schools in the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineer- ing, and math. Efforts highlighted in the PSAs include a program at Bay- lor University that is developing chemicals that are less toxic to humans and the environment; a project at the University of Tex- as that aims to make oil and gas drilling safer; and interactive STEM camps that Texas Tech has created for local children. The announcements also can be seen at the updated microsite Big12MakingaDifference.com. The site includes video profiles of the researchers at each university committed to making changes in areas such as cancer detection, climate change, and sustainability. MBA students Ryan Webb (left) and Ben Kravit, CCIMS Fellows who are managing the Yoo-hoo brand