Two Penn State teams that included College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) students placed among the top 15 teams at this year’s Google Online Marketing Challenge 2010.
Stephanie Apa, Christine Capolarello and Erica Noles of Team Awesome and Andrew Goodman, Garrett Millerand Danielle Watson of Team AdVenture took part in the competition, alongside more than 3,000 other student teams from 70 countries. Goodman recently graduated from IST and Miller is a rising senior with majors in IST and SRA. Penn State fielded 14 other teams based out of the IST 402, Keyword Advertising, class taught last semester by Jim Jansen, associate professor of IST.
“To have two teams from Penn State place in the top 15 teams is really astonishing, a probability of 0.0025 percent, and speaks well of our undergraduates,” Jansen said.
Jansen mentioned that the students mixed advertising and marketing in Team Awesome and technology and advertising in Team AdVenture, making them multi-disciplinary.
"The mix of majors on the student teams really reflects the increasingly intra-disciplinary nature of the today's systems and processes. Online marketing is mix of advertising, psychology and technology. Tackling complex issues takes intellectual diversity" said Jansen.
Students in the competition used real money to develop real advertising plans for real-world clients with help and funding from IMPAQT, Smeal College of Business and the College of Information Sciences and Technology.