Anyone on our team will admit we did not have the best of starts. Our first project was where we had to iron out the kinks and get to know one another as individuals and our unique strengths and weaknesses. By the end of the first project, the strong headed individuals (I being one of them) learned to work together as a cohesive unit. The skill that I worked on improving was letting go of control. Traditionally, even in group projects, I have at times took it upon myself to do the entire project and ensure I got the grade I wanted. Due to a heavy course load that option was not reasonable and I worked alongside my teammates to get the assignments completed. As an aggregate, we did well and I got to know four great people in the process. Not taking on more than my share of the responsibility was something these assignments forced me to do and I believe has benefited me as I work on improving on that. 

What I would do differently next time is get to know each of the group members better before starting the project through some sort of icebreaker. I think that could have dampened or even eliminated some of our early struggles caused by conflicting personalities.  In terms of within the classroom, I would have vocalized my opinions more often. I always seemed to have a viewpoint on questions/ topics, but because I just don’t speak a lot as a general they were not vocalized enough.

My top take away from COMM 296 is that there is far more that goes into marketing than I thought. I was well aware that marketing wasn’t simply advertising, but COMM 296 allowed me to get a small glimpse into some of the many areas of marketing and realize how diverse and complex a topic it is. I want to thank Tamar, Angel, Ells, Yvette, and Vincent for making my COMM 296 experience an enjoyable one.

– Sean Bell

Danica Patrick is more well-known for her off-the-track commercials than her on the track performance, but she made history at the Daytona 500 becoming the first women to ever win a Sprint Cup pole and lead a lap in the Daytona 500. She finished a very respectable eight place. It was also a unique time as grand marshall James Franco started the race by saying “Drivers and Danica start your engines”. Singling out Danica Patrick was something that had never been done before and was received well by fans. A recent Sales Force Marketing Cloud blog by Andrew Gotheif highlighted that as Patrick was making history on-the-track it was a prime opportunity for her sponsors to ride her momentum and time in the spotlight. Some of her major sponsors, including GoDaddy.com, capitalized on this opportunity in the Twittersphere by tweeting numerous times throughout the race about Patrick. Danica Patrick’s breakout weekend turned out to be a blessing  in disguise as rapper 50 cent sent out a tweet from the Daytona 500 saying “Damn, I don’t see no black people lol”. This comment was literally the last thing NASCAR wanted to have said to almost eight million of 50 cent’s twitter followers as they have tried over the years to appeal to a more diverse range of people other than the stereotypical white southern folk. I think Danica Patrick’s success on the track will continue benefit not only her sponsors, but allow her to gain more respect among other drivers in a male dominated sport. As for NASCAR, I cannot see the demographic/ racial makeup of their fans changing as such a deep history and culture has been formed that does not currently allow for new fan segments. 

    Top Number of Tweets About Daytona 500 Drivers During The Race   

As noted in Derek Dodd’s blog post on McKayla Maroney’s sponsorship by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, an Olympic medal does not only bring personal pride to win for one’s country, but also a pay day. The United States Olympic Committee offers $25,000 for a gold, $15,000 for a silver, and $10,000 for a bronze (however these number pale in comparison to other nations such as Italy who pay a staggering $182,400 to a gold medal winner). The United States women’s gymnastics’ team, dubbed the ‘Fierce Five’, was quite successful at the 2012 London Games and was led by Gabby Douglas who won two gold medals. In the weeks following the 2012 London Olympic Games, Gabby Douglas appeared on virtually every late night talk show, Good Morning America, and began obtaining lucrative sponsorship deals. Douglas’ first deals were with Kellogg’s Cereal and Proctor and Gamble (one of the major sponsor of the Olympics) and she has the potential to earn up to $100 million over her lifetime. To me that number seemed rather inflated, but when digging deeper, $90 million of that comes from a contract with Kellogg’s and she currently has over thirty other contracts worth approximately $2.4 million. That still may leave $7.6 million to be made in the coming years which will easily be attained if she can make it to the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Brazil. I find it remarkable how over the span of sixteen days someone’s life can be transformed forever – not only financially, but Gabby Douglas will go down in history as the first African- American women to ever capture the Olympic All- Around gymnastics’ title. Quite an accomplishment by someone who is just sixteen years old.