During the first week of spring classes, the 2023 Graduate Marketing Network (GMN) Case Competition took place. In this event, teams were provided a business-related case with the company Camera IQ, which is a camera experience manager that helps digital marketers create new worlds that customers love to explore. Their platform creates, manages, and measures scalable augmented reality (AR) campaigns for audiences across social media and streaming platforms.
Camera IQ was looking for solutions to the following problems/questions:
- Targeting Decisions – Which customer segment should Camera IQ target? Should they focus on particular industry verticals? How do they scale the business model and expand the current customer base?
- The New Product Decisions – Should Camera IQ launch a new product with capped features and a lower price? Are there alternatives to launching a lower-tier product? Should Camera IQ build a two-sided marketplace for AR content?
We were given 48 hours to develop the best solution(s) to problems posed within the case. Teams had 15 minutes to deliver their presentations to a set of judges. The top four teams were given a twist to the case and another hour to develop a new strategy that addressed the twist.
This event was specifically geared towards MBA marketing students, but all MBA students were able to join a team if desired. I decided to participate in the event to continue developing my case analysis abilities, assessing the situation facing the organization, analyzing the available information, crafting a solution, and defending our recommendations.
Our team was comprised of students from three different specializations: marketing, HR, and supply chain. Teammate Paige VanWart described her thoughts on the case competition experience, “It’s given us a much more realistic sense on how to collaborate across departments; I intentionally didn’t want a full marketing team. I would also say that this competition gave us a kind of creative leniency because we weren’t doing it for a grade. We were doing it to learn, and because we wanted to.”
Our team worked extremely well together and had a fun experience throughout the competition. We placed second, which was very exciting and unexpected, and Paige was recognized for her individual presentation skills. I’m very glad I chose to be part of this case competition because I grew as a business professional, made some wonderful memories, and gained new friendships with my teammates.