During the weekend of February 12-14, 2016, four GWSB students traveled to Portland, OR to participate in the Case Cup Competition at the 2016 National Sports Forum. The Case Cup is a multidisciplinary case study competition featuring eight elite graduate programs from across the country. Teams receive a case without any prior knowledge and have 24 hours to develop and present a solution. The case challenged students to develop a comprehensive integrated activation campaign for Esurance's recent sponsorship agreement with Major League Baseball including entitlement rights to the Esurance MLB All-Star Game Ballot and the newly created Esurance MLB Awards. The objective was to drive 500M+ impressions.
The GW team consisting of Tiffany Brown, R. Alan Eisenman, Edwin Niederberger, and Adam Richelieu developed an integrated plan centered on humanizing the Esurance Brand and establishing trust with new and existing customers. The team introduced a face to the Esurance brand, Ethan Surer, who is an Esurance Customer Service Agent and baseball fanatic who specializes in saving customers money. In order to drive impressions and traffic to the MLB All-Star Game Ballot and Esurance Awards voting platforms, the plan featured a multimedia #ElectEthan campaign where Ethan touted that he had more “saves” than any Relief Pitcher in the MLB. The team worked late into Saturday night/Sunday morning, squeezed in a little sleep, and resumed honing their presentation Sunday Morning. After winning their flight, the team presented in the finals to an audience of nearly 100 people. After visiting alumni and taking a tour of the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR, the GW team was announced as champions in front of the entire conference. Each team member echoed the sentiment that the experience was demanding and exhausting but extremely rewarding. After the exhausting two days, the team enjoyed the rest of the conference attending the many panels, trade show, and networking engagements. Theteam hopes GW will defend its title in Minneapolis, MN at the 2017 National Sports Forum!
