April 30, 2019
Presenting months’ worth of research and creative ideas to a major corporate enterprise can be an intimidating challenge for graduating seniors. But for the students who work at the MOJO Ad advertising agency within the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, this was their ultimate goal. Five MOJO Ad students traveled to Dallas this past February to share their insights on the youth and young adult (YAYA) market with executives from Southwest Airlines.
Tiffany Nguyen, a senior studying strategic communication at Mizzou, was selected to present a special report to Southwest Airlines.
MOJO Ad works on several campaigns throughout the year, including coordinating the strategic communication career fair, recruiting members for the next school year and studying trends in the youth and young adult market called the State of the YAYA Report. Their presentation to 150 people at Southwest Airlines’ annual town hall event was the culmination of their young adult market findings. At the event, the students shared how companies can better understand this key demographic.
“We started studying this segment of 18- to 24-year-olds last semester and produced a survey to collect data about this segment, which we compared with U.S. census data,” said Tiffany Nguyen, a senior studying strategic communication and a member of the State of the YAYA presentation team. “We were answering our group’s questions about YAYA consumers’ attitudes about safety, what they’re looking for in the workplace and their thoughts on cause marketing.”
Along with Nguyen, the presentation team included Megan Bartolac, Connor Hills, Ben Kochuyt and Zach Seusy. These five students worked together to create an engaging presentation based on the extensive research MOJO Ad students gathered. Together, they spent months collaborating on presentation ideas and analyzing key insights.
The group of five seniors that presented to Southwest Airlines pose for a picture after giving an exciting presentation to more than 150 people at the company’s annual town hall event.
“Our team dynamic was awesome,” Nguyen said. “We started rehearsing our presentation in December, and we practiced every few days to get the end result we wanted.”
Nguyen and her teammates were able to present the State of the YAYA report at the MU Strategic Communication Career Fest in front of a group of approximately 90 agency professionals. Aside from Southwest Airlines, these soon-to-be graduates also presented at General Motors headquarters in Detroit earlier this year.
The report with MOJO Ad’s key findings sheds light on the trends taking hold in the youth and young adult demographic to help marketers understand this group as consumers. The digital version of the book and a video of the presentation is available online.
