 In June, two Baruch teams were graduate division winners of the 2003 Leonard J. Raymond Collegiate ECHO Competition. The direct marketing campaign contest, sponsored by Mazda North American Operations (MNAO), was conducted by the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org/dmef). Students who entered the competition—there were 231 entries from 40 schools—had to develop a direct marketing plan to increase sales, leases, and market penetration for Mazda's Protégé 5.
The Baruch teams were students of Professor Harvey Markovitz, who teaches a graduate course in direct marketing. He first made the ECHO competition part of his curriculum during the spring 2002 semester; that year, two Baruch teams won honorable mention awards.
Of the 14 Zicklin graduate teams (comprising 50 students) that took part this year, Tamir Choina, Anderson David, and Oleg Kleyman were awarded the Gold ECHO-graduate level for their campaign, "P5—the First Five-Door Sports Car." The Silver ECHO went to Ashwin Kittur and Jeffrey Singer for "It's Not About Getting There. It's About How Much Fun You Have on the Way." On Sept. 11, an awards luncheon at the Yale Club was held by the Direct Marketing Club of New York (www.dmcny.org), at which the five winners received free annual membership in the club and honorary merit certificates from the DMEF. Baruch College received the gold and silver trophies and two plaques were awarded to Professor Markovitz, who states, "Winning a national competition like DMEF's Collegiate Echo demonstrates that Zicklin marketing students can successfully apply the principles that they learn in the MBA program to the real world. It's an indication that the curriculum, teaching resources, and staff
are clearly on target to meet today's business challenges."
As a result of his efforts, Markovitz was also successful in winning a grant of an initial $15,000 from the Direct Marketing Day Foundation (www.dmdf.org). This was the largest sum awarded to any single school by the foundation, whose mission is to support
educational programs in direct and interactive marketing. As part of this program, a direct marketing interactive resource center will be established in the Newman Library and new courses will be offered at both graduate and undergraduate levels.
Markovitz has been teaching at Baruch since 1999 and is vice president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York. His direct marketing agency, HBM Associates, Inc., was founded in 1981. —MZ
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In February, six Baruch MBA candidates received scholarships to attend the Direct Marketing Education Fund's Direct & Interactive Seminar for Graduate Students, held in New York. Najlaa Abdus-Samad, Ian Au, Jarrett Bockler, Marlena Brawer-Fass, David Rivera, and Sasha Tylim were among 30 students from around the country chosen to attend. The three-day conference included presentations from advertising and marketing executives representing a variety of major firms, including Grey Direct, Yahoo!, Gevalia Kaffee, and Readers' Digest Association, Inc. The scholarships covered meals, travel, and lodging for out-of-state students, written materials, and a team competition, in addition to the seminar itself.
According to Abdus-Samad, "Baruch students were poised, well-informed, dynamic participants" in the learning/networking event. In addition, "The seminar was a marvelous opportunity to take classes with current successful practitioners and academics, work on a real-life project, and match wits with and against other MBA programs."
Donald H. Schepers, assistant professor of management, was responsible for bringing the seminar to the attention of his students and
making recommendations to the DMEF that led to the scholarships.
—MZ
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