A few weeks ago, I participated in the Brand Challenge at Fuqua. It’s an annual event where “teams of students design creative brand challenges that pit products head-to-head in taste and functional tests.” The event has become a true Fuqua tradition, and any student can participate – it’s not just for marketers or future marketers!
My teammate Liz Charles and our Q-tip Darts booth.
Participating teams are tasked with finding a fun way to pit name-brand products against the generic equivalent. This tests students’ brand and product knowledge, and they are asked to determine which product is the name-brand and which is the knockoff. In the last few days leading up to Brand Challenge, my team came up with an idea for Q-tip darts. The game was simple – shoot Q-tips from straws and assign point values to where they land. Our thought was that the real Q-tips would be heavier and not shoot as far; therefore, the brand with the lower score was the “winner.” Practice darts proved this theory correct.
At the challenge, we spent 2 fun hours “shooting darts.” In the end, although my team didn’t win the judges’ choice (marketing professors) or fans’ choice, we still had a lot of fun participating in the contest. It was also fun to visit the other booths.
Events like this have helped me to determine that marketing is probably not a part of my future career path, and that’s ok! It’s good to know. I try to attend and participate in as many events as possible to broaden my perspective on industries and functions to ensure that I’ll make the best career choice for myself.
I like the idea of the Q-Tips! Sounds like it was a lot of fun, too. So did you have your guests try to guess which were the generic equivalent or just show a total score at the end?
Hi Kristina-
Once the guests shot the darts, they voted for which dart traveled further, which by design should have been the generic Q-Tip. There was a little confusion though if they should vote for which dart went the furthest, or which dart they thought was the branded Q-Tip.