Marquis Burch
Marketer. Strategist. Professional.
Marquis Burch ’17 takes on the industry and wins big.
Marquis Burch ’17 was an Advertising major and Entrepreneurship minor at . Burch placed first in the 2016 National Collegiate Effies Competition, a nationwide marketing contest, and was named as one of the 2017 American Advertising Federation's Most Promising Multicultural Students.
Soon after he graduated, Burch landed a job with adidas in Portland, Oregon, where he now works as a brand marketing coordinator. We talked to Burch when he was a senior at .
Defining moment: “I took an Advertising Workshop class with Peg Murphy [associate chair of the Advertising and Public Relations Department],” says Burch. Throughout the semester, Murphy involved her students in marketing competitions, because awards help prove credibility and industry endurance. Burch and a few students developed a mock campaign to enter into the National Collegiate Effies Competition.
The campaign: Burch and his team received Campbell’s V8+Energy as their assignment. The challenge: convince a target audience that V8+Energy was both delicious and healthy. “We called our campaign Outlast Your Kid,” he says. “So we focused on parents as our target audience.” After progressing through online and in-person judging sessions, Burch’s team traveled to Campbell Soup Company’s world headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, to present their work to a board of executives. “We ended up winning first place and received a monetary prize,” he says. “But most importantly, it was a stepping stone in our careers.”
After : Burch says that in the Advertising major, a lot of the coursework is dedicated to personal development. He describes lessons on how to dress professionally, build a body of work, develop a unique voice and pitch ideas. “Overall, the program at has helped substantiate me as a professional,” he says. “Once I graduate, I know that I’ll be prepared to launch into the industry.”