Ohio Wesleyan’s Student Marketing Team Makes Name for Itself
The Ohio Wesleyan Marketing Group (OMG) show off their wall of achievement in the R.W. Corns Building. With the students is faculty advisor Patricio Plazolles. (Photo courtesy of Patricio Plazolles)
Ohio Wesleyan University is proud to support nearly 100 clubs and organizations for its students, providing them a place to pursue their interests and increase their skills base. Among these groups, one is making a name for itself by tackling hands-on marketing projects for clients on and off the OWU campus.
The Ohio Wesleyan Marketing Group (OMG) enables its members to increase their marketing skills and business knowledge by working directly with clients, including business owners and corporations.
Under the leadership of faculty advisor Patricio Plazolles, the group has worked with countless clients to help promote materials and improve public relations. A typical assignment for this group of dedicated students can include anything from social media advancements, to web design, to comprehensive communications plans.
Plazolles says the group is intended to provide more than just “resume building,” requiring a level of dedication far beyond mere participation. Rather, his intention for the group is to develop each individual’s business leadership skills to the greatest extent possible.
Plazolles says the best thing about the group has been its inclusion of students from various academic and social backgrounds. He believes the key to the group’s success, thus far, has been its innovation and hard work.
“[T]he students have to assume the role of professional consultants, and they never fail to take on this role with great dignity and pride,” he says.
Recently the group took on a project from the Alpha Group of Delaware, a nonprofit organization that works to “provide full integration and acceptance of individuals with developmental disabilities within society.” OMG was asked to help create a new branding concept for the company; in essence, to help re-create the face of the organization.
The Ohio Wesleyan students accomplished this as well as improving the design and accessibility of the Alpha Group’s website. After creating their plan, the students presented it to the CEO of the company, who OK’d it and then invited the students to present for the rest of the Alpha Group staff.
Former OMG Vice President Thomas Newman ’14 says he is grateful for the opportunities provided by the group.
“The Ohio Wesleyan Marketing Group has provided me the chance to work on real-world projects that take some people five years working in a marketing firm to do,” Newman says. “The opportunities and achievements produced by the group are tangible and invaluable to a student preparing to enter the workforce.”
Lautaro Cabrera ’16, recently appointed as president of OMG, says his work with the group has given him “valuable real-world experience that I could not have acquired any other way as [an undergraduate] student, with the exception of an internship. It has also helped me with one of the hardest and most important skills a student can have: teamwork. I have learned to mediate between ideas, work with very different and diverse people, and still come up with a cohesive final product.”
Some of the group’s most recent successes have been celebrated with achievement plaques hung inside the R.W. Corns Building outside of the offices for The Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship. Though the plaques capturing only a small portion of the work done by the group, they illustrate the respect the group has garnered in the real world.