Student Competitions

Digital Marketing Contest Pushes Students to Mine Customer Data

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 09/14/16

A competition originally started to help Adobe recruit college students well suited to work in the company's analytics unit is just about to open for this year's challenge. Participants will be given a quick education in how to use Adobe Analytics and then set loose on data culled from a client's website to come up with insights that will help that recipient enhance its own customers' engagement experiences.

Winning teams gain cash prizes and exposure to hiring managers. First prize is $30,000. Also, the university mentors whose teams make it to the finals will receive free passes to attend Adobe Summit, the company's annual customer conference, taking place next March in Las Vegas.

The year's customer is gaming site Sony's Playstation.com. In 2015 it was Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and the year before that it was Lenovo Mexico.

The event kicks off with a one-hour webinar that provides an overview of the competition. That takes place on September 22. Then teams will have the chance to register until September 30. The training on Adobe's analytics service happens on October 3. Then registrants will gain access to "mountains of Sony Playstation data" in order to develop "hidden gems and actionable insights," as Product Marketing Manager Nate Smith explained in a blog article.

Team presentations are due by October 17. Judges will choose 20 teams to move into a semi-final round. In early November finalists will be flown to Adobe's Utah campus to make their final presentations in front of a live audience. During that event, the winners will be announced.

Smith noted that 30 students have been hired by his company after their participation in the competition. In fact, he adds, that's how he came to his own job with Adobe, following his education at Brigham Young University. "I competed in the [2009] competition with two talented colleagues from my MBA program and we won the competition," he wrote. "I subsequently accepted an offer from Adobe and am now the senior manager of product marketing for Adobe Analytics."