As part of the Digital Marketing Course, and in an effort to enrich graduate students’ academic pursuits with a hands-on experience, Dr. Zahy Ramadan, associate professor of marketing at the Adnan Kassar School of Business (AKSOB), reached out to UniGaz, a pioneer in the Liquified Petroleum Gases industry.

Students were asked to design a 360-degree digital marketing strategy that would help Unigaz venture into the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, with an understanding that the company would then adopt the ideas of the team with the best proposal. “Through this process, UniGaz attracts and retains talent by partnering with the best minds in the field of marketing and digital technology,” stated the company.

To achieve this goal, “students conducted a full assessment of the marketplace and the digital landscape, before getting immersed in the omni-channel marketing strategies they proposed,” explained Dr. Ramadan. “They had to tackle a dual challenge: entering a new business market, as well as integrating digital technologies and platforms into pre-existing business processes and practices,” he added.

The project was by no means an easy feat, as MBA student Mona Rahal put it. “Establishing a presence among customers after only being in the business-to-business (B2B) market is the equivalent of almost starting from scratch,” she said. The students were tasked with developing a holistic digital marketing strategy that aims at identifying the target customers, achieving customer acquisition and retention, understanding their needs and implementing all the marketing tactics to make UniGaz ahead of competitors in today’s fierce online landscape.

Despite this, the students left such an impression on the Unigaz jury that two teams were selected instead of just one. Dr. Ramadan said that they “effectively used the course’s material in their analysis and strategies, implementing proper SERVAS benchmarking – a digital analysis methodology, content marketing analysis and omni-channel integration.”

For another MBA student, Hala Hammoud, the experience was worthwhile. The project increased her knowledge in the clean industry field, encouraged her to think creatively in order to digitally market a product that is not commonly perceived as “fun” or “flexible,”  and enhanced her ability to correctly mix and match different tactics together.

“Besides working on the project itself, having had the chance to present it to a UniGaz jury and put forward my own ideas and strategic thinking really enhanced my overall presentation and communication skills, and made me feel like a real employee presenting my digital marketing plan to stakeholders,” said Rahal. She further underscored how she will always look back at this project as one of her proudest empowering moments.