On the weekend of Feb. 27 to March 1, a team led by Drake University students achieved victory in the Murphy Cup Marketing Strategy Competition, a competition in which marketing students address challenges faced by a firm and present solutions to the firm’s executives. The Murphy Cup, held in partnership with Creighton University in Nebraska, creates teams made up of students from both schools, fostering collaboration and teamwork.
This year, Drake hosted the Murphy Cup in connection with Hy-Vee because of the shopping superpower’s presence in Des Moines.
“Oftentimes the client has some connection to the host university,” said Dr. Matt Seevers, a marketing professor at Creighton University. “It was a very natural fit.”
Past clients for the competition have included Casey’s, Nike and Scooter’s Coffee. This year, students had to strategies for Hy-Vee to drive customer engagement.
“Competing in the Murphy Cup was both exciting and intense,” said Mason Van Krevelen, a senior marketing major at Drake. “It was a fast-paced environment that required critical thinking, teamwork and creativity.”
Emma Hawkinson, a senior marketing major and president of the American Marketing Association at Drake, recounted her favorite memory: hanging out after presenting with her team.
“Since my team presented first, [we were] sitting in one of the Aliber classrooms and waiting for each team to finish,” she said. “After presenting, each team would come into the classroom, tell us how it went and what their idea was.”
Van Krevelen said his favorite part of the experience was working with his team at the Hy-Vee headquarters and delivering their marketing strategy.
“It was incredibly rewarding to see our hard work come to life,” Van Krevelen said.
Seevers calls collaboration the main theme of the Murphy Cup. 24 students, 12 from each school, are evenly divided into six teams of four. Students aren’t told who the client will be until one week before the competition and don’t learn who their teammates are until the competition begins.
“I think what makes the collaboration very special is that they don’t even know who they’ll be collaborating with,” Seevers said. “But what we’ve found is that the circumstances lead to really terrific collaboration. The positive outcomes are amazing to watch.”
Hawkinson believes that it’s important to have strong collaboration and communication skills in order to succeed in the competition.
“Everyone on our team brought their own unique skill, whether it was creativity, analytics or sales. We were able to ideate together and then work on our respective deliverables and come back together,” Hawkinson said.
Seevers added that the pinnacle value was the opportunity to combine skills and perform seamlessly in a high-pressure situation.
“My biggest takeaway was the confidence this experience gave me,” Hawkinson said. “Not only did we have to pitch an idea in front of Hy-Vee’s marketing leadership team, but since we presented first, we only practiced once. Being able to win a competition with little to no practice gives you a confidence boost.”
“One thing that stood out to me was how much I learned in a short period of time,” Van Krevelen said. “The Murphy Cup is a fantastic opportunity for students to apply their experiences and classroom knowledge to real-world challenges.”
Seevers said his favorite part of the competition is watching the payoff when students present their proposed strategies to marketing professionals and face questions and answering sessions after.
“It’s a very emotional thing to watch because I have such pride in watching the students perform in moments like that. And watch them perform well, and then watch the awards,” Seevers said. “They didn’t even know each other Thursday night, but they’re all hugging and taking pictures together Saturday evening because they’ve made friends for life. It’s a thrilling experience to watch.”
