Students in marketing class attend field trips for hands-on experience

Students enrolled in sports and event marketing attend field trips to gain hands-on experience.

J Robert Field, assistant professor of marketing, said he wanted to make these field trips so students could gain experience. The students have the opportunity to speak with industry experts. They also are able to see exactly what the marketing process is like at major venues.

The students are given the opportunity to attend four field trips, but they are only required to attend three for the course.

The first field trip was to the Superdome. The second was a tour of the Smoothie King Center. There are two more field trips scheduled for the remainder of the semester.

The purpose of the field trips is to help the students as they move further into their career. The students are able to go to venues and speak with people who are very familiar with the venue.

Field said it gives the students a better understanding of how to market the event and the venue.

“It’s all about enhancing the customer experience,” Field said.

When students went to the Superdome, they learned some of the things the marketing team did to keep fans happy during game time.

Field said he wanted students to learn that marketing is more than advertising. He said that once people are in the venue, there is still marketing that happens.

The students are required to write a response to what they gained from the experience.

Field said so far, the experiences students have highlighted have been about being able to go into the Saints locker room and sit in Sean Payton’s chair.

Students also wrote about how much they learned. The students said that there were certain things they never knew went on behind the scenes at major venues.

“Hopefully, they should be able to transfer the information they get here from these field experiences when they go out and start working in a marketing related area,” Field said.

Field said he hopes the contacts the students make help them get a job or at least an internship.