News

Serious marketing for SeriousFun: MKT students at Abercrombie & Fitch


January 2017

Elizabeth Jenike

In early December, 40 marketing students had the opportunity to present ideas generated through a semester-long project to executives of Abercrombie & Fitch at the company’s headquarters near Columbus, Ohio.

The trip was the culmination of Professor Jan Taylor’s MKT 291 Honors course. Throughout the semester, the students worked on projects geared toward raising awareness for A&F’s partnership with the SeriousFun Children’s Network. SeriousFun Camps are camps designed for children with severe disabilities or diseases, with the main focus of making sure that every aspect of camp is accessible.

“It’s a great place for these kids to go so that they can take a couple days and just act like a normal kid without having to worry about their disease or disability,” said sophomore marketing major Nikki Weaver.

The students were given the charge of coming up with a marketing campaign to raise $500,000 toward the SeriousFun Children’s Network by implementing in-store and online experiences. Abercrombie & Fitch wanted to make SeriousFun a household name, and the eight student teams set their sights on making that goal a reality.

The class was set up in a competition format, with all eight teams pitted against one another to see who could come up with the strategy that resonated with A&F executives the most. At the end of the course, on December 2, the students packed up and journeyed to A&F headquarters to present their ideas.

“It was so cool to travel to Columbus and work with everyone at Abercrombie,” said Kiley Duhn, junior business economics and accountancy double major. “Their team was so helpful throughout the project, and they really pushed us to find innovative solutions throughout the semester. Finally getting to see their amazing headquarters and meet everyone in person last week was a great way to cap off the project and the semester.”

“It was a really great experience working with A&F professionals because they wanted to help us out and give us any information that we needed,” Nikki said. “They were very helpful and approachable throughout the process. The most important thing that I took away from this project was how to go about making a presentation and all of the aspects that go into a campaign.”

The students weren’t the only ones that benefited from the competition. In a LinkedIn post after the presentations, A&F expressed excitement that they were able to work with our students, as well.

“We were absolutely blown away by the presentations and can’t wait to utilize some of their incredible ideas!” the post stated. “Way to go Miami!”

Miami marketing students at Abercrombie and Fitch