Mudd Marketing Takes On March Madness

As we kick off March Madness at the humble Mudd abode, we’ve seen the traffic pick up today by co-workers to drop off their brackets which made us question – what is the best method of choice?  It seems there are sites everywhere helping with every angle from statistics to algorithms to help get the perfect pick, so our marketing department decided to weigh in on what we believe our best methods are. Abby Pritz, our newest member to the team decides based on who lives in the area. If that doesn’t work, she goes by where she’d like to visit.  “If it comes down to Long Beach or South Dakota, I’m going to pick Long Beach.”  For this exercise, she selected Indiana to take top honors because her parents’ families live there and her mom went to Indiana. Lea Theodotou, our senior designer feels that Indiana is indeed a solid choice as well. “It’s very unlikely, therefore, it’s likely.” Indeed. Lisa Mahr goes with the best color choice. While there are many complementary uniform colors, the warm weathered March has led her to go with the lovely pastel blue of North Carolina. I must agree, it’s a favorite color of mine as well.  We all discussed that it’s a close periwinkle or cornflower, and settled on Carolina Blue. Katie Kinseth, our brand strategist is led by mascots – which is fitting with brand identity of a team. She was going for West Virginia’s mountaineer, but switched to Villanova’s Wildcat in exchange for my conundrum. Jackie Albrecht, our marketing analyst went with a top statistical pick of Kansas. She likes measurement and predictive modeling, so this fit her perfectly. For myself (Heather), I usually like to go with a fun-to-say name like Gonzaga or Villanova. Sometimes the way you say something makes the difference.  Upon Katie’s mascot choice, I realized West Virginia was in the mix and since that’s my home state, I had to throw out my theory and double down to Katie’s for the sake of honor. This in turn helped her decide on Villanova wildcats as her choice. What we did learn in our fast paced department was how each method of bracket selecting reflected on areas of passion throughout our career. With this process, how could we narrow it down to just one winner when each choice had clear and concise rationale?  By taking the next logical step, of course. Throw them in a jar and have a drawing. Villanova it is. Happy March Madness everyone.