Event Marketer Spring 2023 - 41

SPOTLIGHT
real-world experiences that will prepare students
for tomorrow's challenges.
MARKETERS TEACH BY EXAMPLE
Michael Baringer, director-field and experiential
marketing at Florida Blue, Florida's Blue
Cross and Blue Shield company, is responsible
for a field marketing team that delivers
community-focused events across the state,
driving Florida Blue's mission to help people
achieve better health, as well as sports
sponsorships and activations covering professional,
collegiate and minor league teams
in Florida. While Baringer went to school
for sports marketing, intending to work for
a professional team, he didn't expect a health
insurance company to be his way into the
world of sports partnerships and events.
Baringer says that since he came into Florida
Blue with a background in sports marketing,
he had to pick up the nuances of strategic
events while on the job. Now, with more than
15 years of experience in the industry, he's
teaching the next generation of event marketers
as an adjunct professor at Southern New
Hampshire University (SNHU). His course
disciplines include sponsorships, brand management,
event facility management, marketing
strategy, business ethics, organizational
development and, one of his most recent
classes, " Experiential Learning for Business. "
" If you're a professor and you can pull
up a case study of this event that your team
activated or this real-world example of a concept
that you're covering in class, that makes
it, in my opinion, stickier and more relevant, "
Baringer says. " So I try to do the same thing
in my class instead of solely focusing on
textbook examples. I can throw in photos,
an event preview or recap, how we're using
data to measure ROI and how consumers are
responding. "
Through her master's program at FIU,
Sosa has had the opportunity to hear from
visiting guest speakers and take part in special
events, like the South Beach Wine & Food
Festival. The program also gives students a
chance to attend the Super Bowl, Formula 1
Miami Grand Prix and Ultra Music Festival.
Sosa says the hospitality school brings the
industry in to meet the students where they
are, offering an invaluable impact to their
career development.
" They always have job fairs every other
semester where you can engage with employers,
so it's great being able to network with
them, get their feedback as to what's happening
in the industry and then also have them
confirm, 'Yes, everything that your professor's
telling you, we need you to know,' " she says.
At New York University (NYU), Richard
L. Gant also strives to bring real-world situations
into the classroom. Working during the
day at his agency, The RL Gant Group Inc., as
president and chief experience officer, Gant
pulls from his daily experiences to incorporate
real-time case studies into lessons
when he teaches at NYU in the evening as
adjunct assistant professor of marketing at the
Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality and
the Department of Integrated Marketing and
Communications. " Event Marketing Strategies "
is a foundational course in the 36-credit
Master of Science in Event Management program,
covering the execution of creative strategy,
integration of marketing and communications
elements, customer and competitor
analysis, social media partnerships and more
from both agency and brand perspectives.
During his 20-plus years at NYU, which
started by obtaining a Professional Certificate
in Sports, Entertainment and Events Marketing,
Gant has seen curricula progress with
the advent of digital technologies, especially
placing a big emphasis on measurement.
DISCOVERING CAREER PATHS
The graduate students who take Gant's courses
range from younger students with limited
marketing knowledge but a strong interest
in the entertainment and sports business to
working professionals encouraged by their
organizations to attend NYU to learn how
Florida Blue's Michael Baringer, director-field and experiential
marketing, provides the students he teaches at Southern New
Hampshire University with inside information on strategy and
analysis to help give them a well-rounded perspective on the
skills and specialties within experiential marketing.
" The real point of a great
collaboration is for companies to
meet and work with exceptional
students who have great ideas,
energy and talent. Professionals
can see that students can
produce pertinent work, and
then, hopefully, they can identify
future employees. "
-Peter Weishar, Professor and
Director-Themed Experience
at the University of Central Florida
eventmarketer.com
SPRING 2023 EVENT MARKETER
41
IMAGE CREDIT: FLORIDA BLUE
http://www.eventmarketer.com
Event Marketer Spring 2023

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