Marketing students experience Flow VR meditation
Master of Science in Marketing students pitch an Icelandic company on proposals for North American launch
Teaching Assistant Professor Cristin Cornell Tarr is no stranger to assisting companies with brand management strategies or high-impact community engagement programs, and then leveraging experience and relationships to benefit her students in the classroom, but this year she identified an incredibly unique opportunity. In a first for her Integrative Marketing Communications graduate course, Tarr assigned a live client project with a company from beyond the traditional radius of Metro Denver. In addition, rather than each small group consulting with different live clients, the entire class, divided into groups of three, competed for the most compelling pitch to one client. Over an intense, 10-week period, Tarr guided her class through key models, tools, and concepts the students immediately applied to develop a marketing plan for Flow (flow.is), an Icelandic meditation company seeking opportunities to launch in North America.
The unique opportunity and subsequent project came from an inquiry a former student posed to Tarr. Whitney Pavlovich, a member of the Flow Advisory Board and Daniels College of Business Master’s of Finance candidate, approached her former professor with a challenge: how best to pursue the development of a marketing plan for Flow’s North American launch. Tarr immediately envisioned a mutually beneficial opportunity for her students to gain real-world experience while developing professional, persuasive products the client could use to translate an initiative into reality.
Project for Flow
Flow provides a means to address the stress epidemic with four or eight minute, private meditation sessions on a mobile or desktop device, and perhaps, most notably, with an eyes-open option in virtual reality. For those who identify closing their eyes as a barrier to effective meditation, the virtual reality option, offering an escape into a 360-degree view of calming Icelandic nature, guided or unguided, with the option of soothing music, is a game changer to the meditation discussion.
Throughout the course, students had the opportunity to engage directly with their client, as well as gain first-hand product experience through a complimentary, 10-week app subscription and classroom time with the virtual reality headset. Elle Kitsos was a member of the high scoring team, “Streamline Solutions,” with teammates Dylan White and Taylor (Osicek) Burd. For Kitsos, first-hand experience with Flow was critical to her group’s marketing plan: “gaining a better understanding of the product allowed us to identify Flow’s value proposition and how to communicate it to the target market; it also helped to inform our competitive analysis and identify how Flow can differentiate itself.”
Daniels student-athletes identify a familiar target audience
While Flow offers individual subscriptions, their current target market falls within the business-to-business (B2B) model where they encourage, inspire, and scale corporate wellness. Students had the opportunity to identify and develop marketing plans according to the same B2B model. Target audiences ranged from firefighters, college athletes via athletic directors, technology firms, healthcare providers via chief human resources officers, human resources managers of companies with more than 250 employees, and, in a shift to business-to-consumer (B2C), gamers.
On current goals for a North American launch and the student’s proposed marketing plans, Flow Founder and CEO Tristan Elizabeth Gribbin stated; “the teams with the marketing playbooks that really helped us the most were the ones that dove deep into the brand, our mission, and explored fresh new target audiences like gamers, athletes, and healthcare. That said, quite a few of the marketing playbooks focused on our existing targets: HR managers and corporate wellness. Those were also really insightful and will assist us in our efforts toward our current goals.”
Student Experience
Student presentations received a score based on a Qualtrics survey the students, Tarr, the client, and additional judges completed after each presentation. Survey questions ranged from presentation and communication skills, to overall professionalism, visuals and creativity, and finally, the quality of the marketing pitch. Judges included not only Gribbin, but also a local HR executive, Suzi Dexter, and big names like John Lack, MTV Founder; and Shari Leventhal, former marketing executive for ESPN.
After hearing all presentations, Dylan White, from the high scoring “Streamline Solutions,” shared his perspective on what set his team’s presentation apart: “brand alignment, storytelling, and evidence.” Elaborating on the evidence claim, he articulated that the team substantiated all of their recommendations, bolstering the legitimacy of their proposal. “Streamline Solutions” also received great feedback on their recommendation for gamification, using Iceland’s famous Ring Road as a metaphor to track user progress within the app.
On whether Flow would recommend the experience of participating in a live client project with colleges and universities to other companies, Rebecca Ketola, Marketing Manager is an advocate: “it provides a fresh perspective on your business, confirms some things you’ve been thinking about, while giving you a new perspective on other things.”
From a student perspective, Taylor (Osicek) Burd confirmed “being able to deliver our plan live to the client, seeing their reactions, and discussing next steps meant a lot to our team – this was not just a project for class; we provided new perspective on their business’s growth.”
