AMI Club Accomplishments in 2020-21

Written by Grant Chic

Edited by Joseph Lee, Claire Son, and Jillian Munoz    

September 9th, 2021

       The Cal Poly Pomona Analytics and Marketing Insights Club exists to develop and nurture students that are interested in the various disciplines in the marketing industry, such as market research, analytics, and customer insights. Founded in 2013, the club strives to provide hands-on opportunities to equip members with the knowledge and skills for such professions and to aid students to obtain placements in prominent market research companies. 

       During the 2020 - 2021 academic year, the club was able to go above and beyond with many achievements and successes. Most notable was the six-part series of workshops that was sponsored by the Center for Customer Insights and Digital Marketing (CCIDM) and developed and presented by Jarrod Griffin, the Director of Professional Development at the club and Junior Marketing Scientist at the CCIDM at the time, under the direction of Dr. Jae Min Jung, Director of the center. These workshops provided students with practical knowledge about data analysis, wrangling, and visualizations with R, an open-source statistical programming language. Out of the fifty-four students, professionals, and faculty that attended, twenty-seven earned certificates of completion for attending and actively following each of the workshops. The workshops are available on demand for anyone on the CCIDM’s website as part of its Virtual Workshop here, granting students and active customer analytics professionals the ability to refresh their data analysis skills with R.

       The AMI Club was also able to organize and host several guest speaker events featuring professionals from notable organizations. Speakers like Maya Kantak from Disney and Art Flannagan from the Insights Association (IA) helped to showcase their respective career paths and how they reached their current job positions and career goals. Art Flanagan, the Vice President of Communications at IA, discussed the many features and benefits that IA offers, such as the association’s inclusion policy, workshops, industry news, and job fairs hosted for their members. During those job fairs, members can meet and network with professionals and recruiters from well-established companies. Maya Kantak, a Consumer Insights Manager at Disney Parks, shared her educational background and discussed her career path in market research. Over the years, she worked in a multitude of industries like automotive, food and restaurants, and entertainment. Kantak discussed the important softwares to learn to be competitive in the insights industry including SPSS and Qualtrics, which AMI and Center students have experience with. 

       The array of speakers continued with Dr. Jae Min Jung, the director of the Center for Customer Insights and Digital Marketing (CCIDM), and Kim Atkins, the president of the SoCal Chapter of Insights Association and Atkins Research Global, INC joined AMI to speak about their experiences in the insights industry and share resources available to students. Dr. Jung discussed the different careers within the industry and internship opportunities available through the CCIDM, as well as the Customer Insights Consultancy program. Atkins discussed the benefits of an Insights Association membership, specifically the benefits and opportunities tailored to students. The Advisor and Assessment Coordinator at Cal Poly Pomona’s Office of Undergraduate Research, Elisa Mitchell, visited AMI to speak about the undergraduate and graduate research opportunities at CPP and other programs, including the McNair Scholars program and Learn Through Discovery program. These programs are excellent resources that provide students with the guidance and financial support they may need to complete their projects. 

       International Business and Marketing Department professor Dr. Tarique Hossain also shared his expertise on conjoint analysis and how it can be utilized within the market industries through its various abilities and functionalities. With his previous position at Ipsos as a Market Science Analyst, he illustrated how to perform price and product features optimization using conjoint analysis. One of the final events of the Fall semester was the IA Diversity and Inclusion Initiative which took place on November 24th, 2020. The club hosted the panel while the Southern California Chapter of the Insights Association moderated. This specific event was meant to make the professionals in the insights and data industry aware of the increasingly more diverse background of graduating students by spotlighting a sample of graduating seniors and recent graduates from Cal Poly with the theme, “Spotlight Series 1: The Student to Young Professional Journey''. By facilitating this webinar, the CCIDM and the AMI Club aimed to inform the industry professionals about the motivations and drive that Millennials and Gen Z from Cal Poly Pomona bring to the table.  To learn more about this event, you may watch the recording here. 

       The Spring 2021 semester was also full of tremendous milestones and successes. During this period, the club hosted several more workshops by students and brought in multiple professional guest speakers. The student-led workshops included: “Intro to Excel” by Sebastian Hernandez, “Product Development and Marketing in EV/Hybrid Industry” by Patrick Ogaz, “Effective Presentation Skills'' by Jillian Munoz, a two-part workshop on “Data Wrangling and Visualization” led by both Patrick Ogaz and Jillian Munoz, and “Introduction to Email Marketing” by Andrea Escobar Vara. Several of these workshops were presented as a preparation for the GFK hackathon that the AMI Club partakes in, where students could practice and apply their analytics and market research skills.  Speakers like Rolfe Swinton and David Stanton from GfK talked about the essential basics of business developments, particularly with projects and start-up ideas. Hilary DeCamp from LRW shared her insights on market segmentation, with regards to how the pandemic-related events and marketing technology shifts had impacted the way in which companies should target their audiences today. In addition, these were also great opportunities for students to build their networks and make interpersonal relationships with current members of the customer insights industry, as Andrea states, “One of the best experiences I had last semester with AMI was the presentation of Hilary DeCamp, Chief Research Officer at LRW. Her presentation was about marketing segmentation and its disruption by the pandemic and marketing technology. One could tell that she is knowledgeable in the topic and is passionate about research. It was inspirational to see a successful woman in the research field, [which is] something I aspire to be.''

       As a way to incorporate all the knowledge and skillsets, the AMI members participated in the GfK Next Gen Hackathon; this competition provides students with the opportunity to test their business intelligence and data interpretation skills. In the Spring of 2021, the AMI club produced outstanding results with their 3 teams: winning finalist, runner-up, and even 1st place for the entire competition. Read more about it here. The success of all three teams illustrated the advanced knowledge and teachings that are offered at Cal Poly Pomona, preparing students for the market research industry through the hands-on learning experience that the university stands by. Patrick and Jillian, members of the 1st place team, also shared their experience and how they came to develop their project idea for the hackathon in a podcast with Natalie Sneed from Kia and Sharon Kondo from One Team Advertising to conclude the GfK successes. Here about the podcast here.

       To wrap up the entire school year’s success, the AMI club was also awarded the Learn-by-Doing Award from the UBSS (United Business Student Senate) organization that is in charge of the College of Business Administration clubs and organizations. Out of the 24 clubs in the College of Business Administration, the AMI club was able to claim that award, illustrating its role in granting students the opportunities to foster the Learn-By-Doing mentality as offered by the numerous workshops and hackathons during the academic year. Going forth, the AMI club hopes to reach similar successes and accomplishments in the 2021 - 2022 academic year. 

       As the newly elected president for Fall 2021, Joseph Lee shares his thoughts and goals for the future semester and goals, illustrating that “One of our main missions for this club is to develop our members professionally, and I argue that we have accomplished that for the academic year 2020-2021. Going forward, we hope to continue this trend of success by planning events that will be of value to the members and to the executive board as well. We look forward to seeing our members grow and develop into business professionals, and that motivates us to provide the best for our members”. 

       All in all, the 2020-2021 academic year has been a huge milestone in the accomplishments and growth of the AMI Club. As a student, clubs are a great way to network, develop skills, and learn about their particular interests and majors. The AMI Club offers all that and more, providing students with a gateway to understanding the market research industry! As the club continues to grow in accomplishments, we hope to see more students engage and learn the vast opportunities that market research, digital marketing, data analytics, and customer insights offer.

	The AMI club is driven to provide students interested in market research with an opportunity to understand and gather insights for that industry. Granting workshops and hands-on activities, the AMI club meets every Tuesday during U-hour. If you are interested, learn more about the club here or reach out to the club’s eboard here!