One of Iowa State’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication advertising classes presented their semester-long project working with a client in Italy on Thursday.

Two teams presented their marketing agencies, which were Golden Heritage Agency and Global Summit Agency.

Logan Hansen, a senior in advertising and account manager for Golabel Summit Agency, said when starting this project they jumped right into research.

“That took a good majority of October into early November time, and then from November to December, we’ve been working on our presentation as well as our creative elements, our deliverables and our plan that we gave to them,” Hansen said.

Jack Newport, a senior in advertising and creative manager for Golden Heritage Agency, said months went into it and they started with research.

“Then we took all of our research, turned it into an IMC plan, like 15 pages, and then we took that IMC plan and turned it into a 30 slide presentation,” Newport said.

Hansen said they started with secondary research, looking at articles and market trends. 

“For our primary research, we did a focus group, and then we also did a lot of interviews, which we gained most of our valuable information from. And then we also had a quick little survey for some professionals,” Hansen said.

Furthermore, Hansen said the hardest part was finding what direction to go.

“When you first get set up with the project, it’s just so open,” Hansen said. “Like you could really do anything with the project. So it was kind of just dialing down our research and finding out what we really did want to do.” 

Newport said communicating with the client overseas was a little difficult with the time difference.

“The time difference was seven or eight hours, so we couldn’t really message them in the middle of the day at all. So that was definitely difficult,” Newport said. “We got in routine and that became easier, and our teammates made it a lot easier to each other.”

Hansen said he enjoyed meeting with the client on a week-to-week basis. 

“It’s just cool working with a real client,” Hansen said.

Newport said wrapping up the project was enjoyable seeing it all come together.

“Our team is really happy right now. The morale is high because of it and everything looked great for us, like everything we created,” Newport said.

The client for the project is the owner of a resort in Urbino, Italy, called Tenuta Santi Giacomo e Filippo. Marianna Bruscoli said their company understands more about cost and marketing strategy as an Italian customer.

“We dig a little bit more into how you understand, you think about an Italian customer,” Bruscoli said. “So we understood much more than before. We understood how much cost, for example, a strategy, a marketing strategy, first of all, and how to do properly all these steps to achieve ‘gets the goal’ being the purpose of the action.”

Bruscoli said both teams have been very kind and they had no problem in terms of timing with emails they received.

“It’s been really very, very good and very kind, and we appreciate a lot. It’s been a great, great time,” Bruscoli said. “We would like to repeat it.”

Daniele Palmieri, who works for Tenuta Santi Giacomo e Filippo and a client for this project, said it has been a nice opportunity to have this communication with the university.

“It’s been an honor for us and very important to understand how American people actually can lead a marketing plan in the different way from Italian one,” Palmieri said.

Palmieri said the teams have been very kind and professional.

“We have some problem with the language, of course,” Palmieri said. “It’s a bit complicated, but it’s been a very very good experience.”

Benjamin Withers, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said he was looking forward to understanding more about what is going on in the class.

“I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, because I’ve never been a part of this but my own discipline is pretty far away from this one, so I wanted to come in and learn a little bit more quality the students,” Withers said.

Withers said he took away the high quality of the students and the dedication of the faculty.

“To put this together is a lot of extra work to be able to find an international client to go through all the hoops that the university makes us go through and work with them,” Withers said. “The fact that they go to that extra effort in order to help their students have this experience was really important.”

Withers also mentioned the international partners.

“The fact that they’re willing to do something that was obviously new to them, but to provide this kind of real-world experience,” Withers said.

To learn more about Advertising 4340, visit this website.