The Breakfast Of Marketing Champions

Anthony Tinay | Pulse

A team of marketing students from University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley celebrated their second place honors win in the National Collegiate Digital Marketing Championship (NCDMC) at a breakfast Wednesday.

The NCDMC, held by Baylor University, consists of a variety of assessments aimed to challenge students’ marketing skills. One such contest was Man vs Machine, where students are tasked with bidding keywords to see which ones perform better than others as well as optimizing landing pages for search engines. Another contest was Viral, where contestants answer questions based on social media platforms.

In the NCDMC, the winners and rankings were determined by a point system. Based on their performances, Man vs Machine’s winning team will have won 1,000 points and Viral will afford students to win 1,000 points each round.

The UTRGV group of students were split into two teams, with Team 2 taking second place overall in the competition. The students on Team 1 who attended the competition were: Kylah Cuellar, accounting senior, Seth Vega, marketing junior, Kzyna Martinez, marketing senior, Dulce Jasso, marketing senior, Alexnandra Garcia, marketing senior and Isaac Salas, marketing senior. 

The students on Team 2 were Joshua Ramirez, marketing junior, Dairne Flores, marketing senior, Consuelo Rodriguez, marketing and computer science sophomore, and Odalys Garcia, marketing senior. 

The professors involved in training the students were Professor Michael Flores, marketing professor, and Mary Ann Aguilar, marketing adjunct lecturer. 

Dairne Flores, marketing senior, won two rounds of the Viral Competition and placed in the Top 3 individual ranking. Joshua Ramirez, marketing junior, got Top 5 in the Man vs Machine contest, and Seth Vega, marketing junior, placed Top 20 in individual rankings. One of the two UTRGV teams won second place overall in the competition. 

Vega said the UTRGV participating students’ intensive training took place Friday afternoons for months. He described the work as worth the effort after he and his teammates’ performances at the competition.

“We’re such a strong group and we gave it our all,” Vega said.

He said the team’s combined efforts were able to overcome the challenges associated with the contests at NCDMC.

“It’s very hard to be versatile in the assessments they challenge you with,” Vega said. “However, there were opportunities for students to showcase their individual strengths. If you’re a good test taker, there’s one for you. If you’re good at public speaking, that one’s for you.”

Kylah Cuellar, student team leader of the group, was still processing the competition win during the breakfast. As team leader, Cuellar’s job was to help Professor Flores guide the practices leading up to NCDMC.

“Contrast to last year, we had more judges, so students could get that feeling of presenting in front of someone they didn’t really know,” Cuellar said. 

Flores, and marketing department lecturer, Mary Ann Aguilar guided and trained the UTRGV students for the competition. At the celebratory breakfast, Aguilar said she was proud of the team’s work.

“They went out and stayed focused, they stayed determined. At times they felt defeated, but they pulled through,” Aguilar said. 

Upon reflecting on the results and performance of the team, Aguilar along with the rest of the students are ready for next year’s competition.

“It starts with leadership and how we support them. It was my first year, I now have a better idea of supporting them in different aspects,” Aguilar said. “I’m looking forward to next year.”