Top 5 Favorite Things from the MEA Conference

May 16, 2014
Stukent News

Mark Kruckenberg and Brandon Winter (sales team) recently returned

from the Marketing Educators’ Association Conference in Silicon Valley, California.

The MEA conference is an international organization for faculty development for marketing professors. Their mission is to provide worldwide leadership in promoting the development and sharing of scholarship that enhances marketing education and advances marketing knowledge and practice. We love participating in conferences such as the MEA as it introduces us to rockstar professors from across the world! While at this conference we made note of all the little things that made this conference awesome. Below you’ll find our top 5 favorite things!

And here they are:

1. The candy bar journey. If you are a marketing professor and have

attended a conference with us, then you’ve probably received one of our awesome emails requesting your favorite candy bar! For those who aren’t familiar, we send a pre-conference email to all marketing professors requesting their favorite candy bar and we go to great lengths to make sure we have it at our booth ready for them. In this particular case, we had some trouble locating a Dark Chocolate Toblerone for Professor Brian Jorgensen from Westminster College. Instead of chalking it up for a loss, Mark and Brandon (our sales staff on-site) walked 1.3 miles down to World Market to ensure Brian got his Dark Chocolate Toblerone! What troopers!

Professor Brian Jorgensen holding his Dark Chocolate Toblerone with our very own Mark Kruckenberg

2. Gwyneth Howell. We had the privilege of presenting with the one and only Gwyneth Howell from the University of Western Sydney. She goes above and beyond to connect with her students and engage through social media outlets.

3. Mark Staton and the GAIQ. We thought this was a really cool way to prepare students for the job market. Professor Mark Staton from Western Washington University shared that a replacement for his final exam was to have his students pass the Google Analytics Individual Qualification(GAIQ). The students all brought their laptops to class the second to last day. This did an amazing job in emphasizing the importance of students preparing for the job market and setting themselves apart from other candidates.

4. International. What we didn’t know prior to attending MEA was the international influence it shared. The conference actually started out as the Western Marketing Educators’ Association in 1978. In June 2000, the organization became national and the MEA was created. There were nine countries that were represented last week outside of the US.

5. Ed Petkus. We were blown away at how hospitable the conference organizers were to our team. Ed Petkus who is the immediate past president for MEA, from Ramapo College in New Jersey was about the coolest sponsor organizer we have met. He was very helpful, friendly, and made sure we had enough food and drink. When we arrived at the conference, one of our representative’s name tag had an error (wrong company name), Ed took it and was back a few minutes later with a bold “Stukent” with a heavy underline covering the previous error. It looked pretty good!

The Marketing Educators’ Association Conference allowed us to meet new professors and make new friends. We were able to show off our internet marketing simulation – The Real Deal Simulation, as well as inform marketing professors of our 100% digital internet marketing textbook that just recently launched! We can’t wait until next year!