Fox Sports taps students to design marketing campaign

Mark Miester mark@tulane.edu
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Students in a class at the A. B. Freeman School of Business delivered their final presentations on Friday (Dec. 6), but these projects were for more than just a grade. They were to see which team would have its marketing campaign executed by Fox Sports.

Student presentation to Fox Sports

Students present their marketing plan for local high school sports coverage to representatives from Fox Sports and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)


The presentations culminated a semester-long project that put students in professor of practice John Howard's undergraduate Advertising and Brand Promotion class to work on behalf of Fox Sports New Orleans. The assignment? Create a 360-degree marketing campaign to promote the network's coverage of Louisiana high school sports.

Representatives from Fox Sports and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association were on hand to choose the winning campaign.

After five hours of presentations, the judges selected the winner — “Louisiana: You Create Legends. You Make History,” a campaign built on Louisiana's reputation for producing future NFL stars.

Mary Hyink, director of marketing with Fox Sports New Orleans/Southwest, said judges were impressed by the team's idea for an accompanying social media hashtag, #WheredYaGeaux, that plays on the local custom of identifying people by where they went to high school.

“That really struck a chord with us,” said Hyink. “I think for us, the true benefit is that not only did we have a winning team, but there were also other teams that we will probably pull an idea or tactic from to add to what we bring to life on air.”

The project was part of Fox Sports' Creative University program, which involves students in hands-on projects for the network. Tulane is one of 20 universities involved in the program.

“Our hope is that we're giving students some real-life, real-client, real-world experience,” said Lindsay Amstutz, vice president of marketing for Fox Sports Networks. “For us, it's a tremendous pipeline for potential talent. We've hired a lot of students who went through Creative University.”