Knacktive students pitch their campaign ideas to local humane society

Twenty-three students in Northwest Missouri State University’s Knacktive course spent their spring semester devising a comprehensive marketing campaign for a real-world client and made their final pitches Friday.

When the deliberation was finished Friday evening, Berry the Bearcat – a group comprised of students Shelby Singleton, Syeira Tomory, Anna Ringel, Landon Jones, Sawyer Cross, Skyler Stamps and Kate Walker – got the nod as the team that provided the New Nodaway Humane Society with the most useful deliverables.

“The teams provided great material for us to use,” said Wes Rockwood, who serves on the Humane Society’s Board of Directors and is a web designer in Northwest’s Office of University Marketing and Communication. “We have something to pull from each of the teams. This equips us with a unique opportunity to piece together a plan we feel is even better. Each team had elements that were better than the others, and this gives us dozens of possibilities to implement in the coming months.”

Each spring, the interdisciplinary program places advanced undergraduate students in an environment mimicking a digital media marketing agency. This year, Knacktive students grouped into three teams partnered with the local animal shelter to generate ideas and materials to promote giving opportunities.

Berry the Bearcat pitched a thorough campaign that included templates the Humane Society could use throughout the year to generate funding support. The team offered flyers, phone call scripts, email templates and letters tailored for individual donors as well as potential sponsorship partners. Additionally, the team provided social media recommendations focused on Instagram and Facebook to reach the Humane Society’s demographic target.

“I think the deliverables that we gave to them – very ready-to-go, action-based steps – really helped solidify our presentation,” Kate Walker, a senior business management major from Brookfield, Missouri, who was the team’s project manager. “I also think it’s the way we delivered the presentation itself. The way that you pitch a presentation to a client is going to really make or break what gets you the win.”

Walker said she applied for Knacktive with a desire to grow her skill set. As a project manager, she said she learned the importance of listening to teammates and how to be an effective leader.

“I had no idea what a project manager was when I first started this, and it was definitely a hands-on learning process,” Walker said. “I have loved every second of it, and I have watched myself and my team grow.”

This year’s Knacktive faculty team consisted of Brenda Jones, a senior instructor of marketing; Diana Linville, a senior instructor of computer science and information technology; Maria Pimenova, an assistant professor of art; and Dr. Kylie Wilson, an assistant professor of communication.

Knacktive also regularly partners with Northwest alumni who are experts in the field to provide additional instruction and advising.

“We have the professionals come in throughout the semester, depending on where we are in the process, and they give them the real-world stuff,” Jones said. “I always tell the students, we’re going to give you the skeleton, and then these professionals are going to come in and give you the whole person, all the meat and skin, if you will.”

Working with nonprofit organizations, which sometimes have fewer resources, provides a unique challenge to Knacktive students, Jones said.

“When you’re coming up with a promotional campaign, you go through the same process as you do for a for-profit, but they don’t have the money to spend,” Jones said. “You have to get really creative, and they brought some specific asks, and the students realized eventually that sometimes the client, what they say their main problem is is due to something else. So you have to work backwards from what they think the problem is, and they learned that pretty quickly too.”

After receiving the recommendations of each Knacktive team, the New Nodaway Humane Society believes they will implement pieces from all of the campaign pitches into their future marketing and fundraising efforts.

“Each one approached it from a little bit different angle,” Jones said. “As we were sitting through the presentations, there were parts that I hadn’t heard. When they gave their final pitch, it was ‘Oh, good change to make, based upon the feedback they got from people coming in and listening to them.’ They all did a great job.”

Rockwood, a Northwest alumnus who participated in Knacktive as an undergraduate student, said the course provides an experience that students don’t always find in a traditional classroom.

“Students get to take all the conceptual work and put it into a real project,” Rockwood said. “Getting a budget to produce materials for this presentation gives students the opportunity to compose a supreme portfolio project – a great package of items for them as they begin searching for a career.”

About Knacktive

Knacktive is an elective course designed to replicate the creative demands and intense teamwork atmosphere of a technology-oriented, professional marketing and communication agency. Students are selected for the experience and actively refine their creative abilities, collaborative skills and academic knowledge with the objective of improved competitiveness in the professional marketplace after graduation.

Students interview for and are assigned to specific roles within their team, such as project manager, media manager, marketing strategist, art director and digital media manager.

Throughout the course, students experience a realistic, agency-like atmosphere as they work in teams on a comprehensive campaign plan for a real client with real issues to address. The competing teams conduct research, analyze the data, devise a strategy, budget, formulate tactics and ultimately make a formal presentation to the client.

Knacktive incorporates principles, strategies and tactics of design, marketing and public relations through a melting pot of majors from Northwest’s schools and departments of Communication and Mass Media; Language, Literature and Writing; Fine and Performing Arts; Business; and Computer Science and Information Systems. Interested students must apply for the course, and selected students earn three hours of academic credit by successfully completing the course.

The inaugural Knacktive class in 2011 designed a comprehensive marketing campaign for Cincinnati-based LasikPlus Vision, and the winning team’s “Eyes Save Lives” campaign was spun off nationally within three months.

Subsequent Knacktive classes have tackled rebranding projects and marketing campaigns for clients including Science City at Kansas City’s Union Station, Tri-State Ford auto dealership in Maryville, Hy-Vee, American Royal, the City of Maryville, Farmer's Mutual Insurance of Nodaway County and St. Joseph Youth Alliance. Knacktive alumni, meanwhile, have gone on to obtain jobs at some of the region’s top advertising and marketing agencies.

Business owners interested in learning more about working with Knacktive should contact the Northwest Foundation at 660.562.1248. To learn more about Knacktive, visit www.knacktive.com.