Three Seniors End Their Year With Huffy Bike Competition Win

Seniors Chris DeCaro, Tran Hoang and Anchal Gugliani ended their final undergraduate year in triumph. The trio competed in the Huffy Bike Competition, during which they created an extensive marketing campaign for the bike company and took home first place. They received $1,000 to donate to a charity of their choice and each student received a brand new bike and invaluable experience creating the campaign.

“I thought it was cool to see a project go from beginning to end. We were given a problem and had to narrow it down to exactly how we wanted to solve it,” DeCaro said.

The team’s marketing plan was designed to market Huffy bikes to college students. They developed a multi-step plan based around the idea that if students ride their bikes instead of walking, they would be able to do more.

“Our slogan was ‘Huffy go fast,’ and the idea was that with a Huffy bike you can go fast and live the college life,” DeCaro, a marketing and information systems double major, said. DeCaro explained that he rides his bike across campus and that he wouldn’t be able to participate in all of his activities without it. He wanted to portray that need in the campaign.

“We’ve seen other successful marketing campaigns, like the Old Spice Guy, Keith Stone, and Dos Equis – they are the personalities that college students like to dress up as for Halloween. So we created a character called ‘That Guy’ who is that guy on campus who does everything: He is on the hip hop dance team, he goes fishing, he’s in 10 fraternities, he does krumping,” DeCaro explained. “He’s that guy everyone can relate to and the only way he’s able to do it all is because he has a Huffy bike.”

In addition to “That Guy,” the team created the idea for a purchasing plan and a mobile app. The plan began with introducing the bikes to freshmen before they came to campus. The team decided to present bikes as a need, just like bed risers, mini refrigerators and laptops.

Once they were introduced to the idea of a bike, freshmen would be able to compete in a video submission contest auditioning to be “That Guy,” and the winner would receive a free Huffy bike.

Finally, when a student is ready to purchase his or her bike, the Huffy bike would entice them further with its affordability and a charitable donation to a local bike-related charity. They would get a free mobile app for purchasing the Huffy that would show them the fastest routes on campus, comparing walking time versus biking time.

“A 20-minute walk is only three or four minutes on a bike. The bike is the most time efficient and cost efficient compared to driving, taking the bus and walking, and we wanted out campaign to show that,” Hoang said.

DeCaro demonstrated this efficiency as well: “We wanted to show that biking is the fastest mode of transportation in most cases. So, I actually strapped a camera to my head and said, ‘Here’s the bus, and here’s me.’ I raced the bus and got to our destination a minute and a half before the bus did.”

The competition consisted of several rounds. First, the team had to present to their electronic marketing class. Their professor, Bill Rand, selected his favorites, and submitted them to Brunner, the agency running the marketing competition for Huffy. DeCaro, Hoang and Gugliani were selected to represent the University of Maryland and competed against other teams from Carnegie Mellon University and Dayton University.

The team walked away from the competition with $1,000, which they presented to the American Cancer Society at a Relay for Life event at the university.

For DeCaro, the decision to donate to the American Cancer Society was a personal one: “My mom is battling a brain tumor, so I thought it would be nice to donate the money we won at the Relay for Life. My mom was excited about it and was really happy that it was going on. She’s been doing a great job of dealing with all of this stuff.”

With the competition over and school ending, the team looks back on their win as an impressive feat to have accomplished. While none of the teammates plan on going into electronic marketing as a career, they enjoyed the experience the competition presented and the sweet victory that culminated their senior year.

“I really enjoyed the creative freedom we were given. We were able to do whatever we wanted with the marketing plan, which was different from our structured classes with guidelines and rubrics,” Hoang, a marketing and supply chain double major, said. “It was a great senior year top-off.”

Jessica Bauer, Writer and Editor, Office of Marketing Communications