MaxFAX…
You’re Hired! Maybe that’s not as dramatic as hearing "You’re Fired!" from that guy with orange hair, but it’s a terrific way to run a CTAM chapter event. Comcast Colorado VP-Marketing Bill Mosher got to say those words to the winning trio of Team: Triple Play from the University of Denver Daniels School of Business. The winners, who share a $1,500 check and paying internships, are: Aubrey Eggertsen – studying for an MBA, Integrated Marketing Communications; Megan McCourt – ditto; and Akash Vijay – studying for an MBA in Finance. The judges were Bill, Starz’ Kelly Bumann, Charter’s Maria Rothschild and Time Warner (National) Cable’s Tom Feige… marketing experts all. The winners won by answering, of the three teams, best these questions: 1) What should Bill count on in 2007? 2) What is he most vulnerable to? 3) What are the competitive advantages he can leverage in the upcoming year? 4) What should his focus be to retain and grow market share in Denver? Good questions… and the teams, who had been given a case study of Bill’s ’06 and been coached by some real cable folks (including the ever-marketing Jerry Maglio), actually answered some of the questions. Team One: great organization and preparation… came up with an over-arching marketing theme ("Life on Demand") but failed to think it through fully. They did, though, use "On-Demand" as their team name. Also, clever use of the Comcast screen prompts from Comcast On Demand for their powerpoint. The team: Jason Short, Kadambari "Kads" Bennurkar and Xiaoting "Christing" Zhang. Team Two: good tactical ideas; no overall strategy. But the 3 guys—all very good presenters —brought something that sounded like it had been developed at a bar the week before. One good idea: the Colorado state flag with COMCAST on it. Best team name: The Nihilists. Worst gaffe: thinking Time Warner might overbuild Comcast. Second worst gaffe: cutting off the questioner when asked about how they could do one idea (showing free movies in parks) during the winter. The team: Ben Turner, "Ellis" Dodds and Julian Lewis. Team Three (Winners): most nervous presenting; best overall preparation; most recent information included and driven by actual research. They even showed a DirecTV screen shot during the Bears/Saints game… no snow on the set, the dish was covered… screen was just gray. All were quite impressive. This was a terrific way for the CTAM of the Rockies to reach out to local schools and get some new involvement in the industry. Driven by Sand Cherry’s Duane Dick, the take-off on "The Apprentice" turned out to be fun, enlightening and a model. It could be something every CTAM chapter should do… with a face-off of the best at CTAM each year! And what did Team Three suggest? Well, to solve the upcoming problem with bandwidth as the digital transition hits home while DirecTV adds a 100 HD channels… drop the least viewed channels and shift them to VOD. Random Notes:
