Written by Alex Barouxis-Kroll

The Real World Business Challenge is an annual event that allows students to work with local companies to create action plans to address their marketing issues. Teams meet with their businesses multiple times to learn their goals, before developing and presenting their final marketing solution at MAC SMAC. This opportunity allows MAC club members to further develop their overall marketing skill set, while gaining professional experience with a local business and their network.

I will take you through my journey of the 2023 Real World Business Challenge, and how it has been the most rewarding experience of my marketing career.

Getting More Involved

As a wandering marketing major in the spring of my junior year, I felt the need to gain more marketing experience and expand my professional network. I started by going to MAC meetings bi-weekly, but I wanted to challenge myself to participate in something that would get me out of my comfort zone.

At the end of a meeting in early February, our director Diane Devine shared details regarding the Real World Business Challenge. She told us about the concept, how we could work directly with real businesses from the local seacoast area, and how we would provide real solutions for them to potentially implement into their operations. She then told us about the companies participating, how some were new to the event and how some were returning from the year prior. One by one, she gave a brief rundown of each company until she reached the final one: Port City Pretzels.

She mentioned how the leader of last year’s winning team would be working with Port City this year. Without hesitation I raised my hand and announced that I would like to be on the team working with the pretzel people. I had never spoken to anyone else on the team before that day, but knowing that the leader had winning experience in the past made it easier to step out of my comfort zone.

Getting Going

We scheduled a meeting with the founder and CEO of Port City Pretzels, Suzanne Foley. Her entrepreneurial story was amazing to learn about, and the growth of her business is every family recipe inspired dream. Our group had the opportunity to walk through the operations factories where the pretzels were made and packaged, which was a part of a business I had not yet been exposed to. We walked into a conference room and began to talk about the type of marketing issues Port City faced, and the goals that they wanted to achieve. Suzanne informed us that the primary goal was increasing brand awareness, especially regarding the recent health changes to the formula of their pretzels. She wanted to convey the message of healthier ingredients without scaring off her customers who loved the taste and texture of her original product.

We brainstormed some ideas regarding social media and outbound marketing. We came up with an idea to post a graphic explaining the recent healthy changes on Instagram in accompaniment to hosting a giveaway. We proposed that people at the final presentation during MAC SMAC could like and share the post to their Instagram stories in order to be entered into the giveaway for a case full of their favorite flavored pretzels, while earning a free bag in the process. Suzanne loved the idea, as generating more sales was less important than generating awareness of her brand and products.

In addition to the giveaway, I had come up with an idea originating from my love of college basketball. Considering it was March, I pitched the idea of creating a bracket consisting of the four different flavors of pretzels Port City offered, and crowning the winning flavor as “The People’s Favorite Pretzel”. Suzanne loved the idea, which made me feel much more confident in my marketing skill and abilities from that point on. We all began developing our presentation more and more, prepping for our chance to show the judges how our ideas could make a real impact on an already successful company.

Getting It Done

At the final presentation, we explained to each judge what our plan was and the different ways Port City could improve their brand awareness. While the overarching theme of raising awareness of the new healthier products was our centerpiece, my March Madness concept drew interest from every single judge, giving me more and more confidence every time we had the opportunity to explain the idea. After the judging had concluded, we waited eagerly to learn the results of the competition. We placed second of six teams and I was very proud that a group of people I had never met before could achieve what we had through the RWBC.

Following the challenge, we had the opportunity to eat and network with all of the amazing business owners and industry professionals present for MAC SMAC. After finding Suzanne, I was introduced to her daughter Brynn, who had been advancing her career as a producer for Barstool. I told them about my passion for creative marketing and how I had recently started a small marketing agency with an associate. We began to discuss opportunities to provide services for Port City Pretzels, including renovation of their website. It’s safe to say that getting out of my comfort zone and participating in the Real World Business Challenge was one of the most important decisions of my college and professional career. The opportunity to apply marketing techniques learned at Paul College and network with a wide variety of industry professionals helped me fine tune my skills and give me some perspective of where I want to go within the marketing space. I would encourage any and all marketing students to participate in the RWBC, especially if you feel a bit lost, just as I did. They say sometimes you just have to go and do it. There’s no better feeling than looking back and saying “I did that”.

Stay tuned for our new upcoming project with Suzanne and Port City Pretzels presented at this year’s MAC SMAC and Real World Business Challenge on March 1st!