Cancellations of internships because of the COVID-19 pandemic spurred UF student Danielle Gray to offer an opportunity — and school credits, if desired — for undergraduates and recent graduates to prove that they stayed productive despite global setbacks.
Instead of wallowing into the mire of listless summer, Gray, a 21-year-old UF marketing senior, helped fill the gap for herself and other students nationally with the Quarantine Marketing Battle. Spanning six weeks, 18 teams and 100 competitors, goal-oriented students interested in the music industry compete to create a marketing plan for an artist. In the end, one team per artist will be awarded first place by a professional panel of three judges.
“This is a fun and kind of creative way to get something on the resume,” Gray said.
Participants either chose their teams or were assigned randomly. They were given the choice of three artists, Duke & Jones, seeyousoon and Jukebox the Ghost, to represent as a faux record label. Based on the artist selected, the objective ranged from promoting an album release to gaining more internet traction using YouTube and Omegle.
“I teamed up with the artist and their managers to have real-world examples, real-world issues to solve,” she said. “For Duke & Jones, the objective was to come up with three campaigns or three ideas on how to get their music heard on just weird platforms, but then how can that tie into their YouTube channel.”
The program was devised in April and launched mid-May.
“In order to reach a bunch of students, the first thing I did was reach out to a couple of universities across the country and I just reached out to their music business programs,” Gray said.
Between about 50 cold emails to professors nationwide and networking with friends in the industry, Gray was able to attract students in-state and from schools such as New York University, University of Southern California and Berklee College of Music.
Members of clubs and groups from UF also had a high participation turnout (20 students total): Gray’s own Gator Music Industry Club, American Marketing Association UF chapter and Swamp Records.
“I would like to grow the Gator Music Industry Club… and I think just building a bigger music industry community around Gainesville is important,” she said. “I would just kind of like to link everyone together and just build a better and bigger community.”
“My team is composed of all people from Swamp Records, a student-run record label at UF,” said participant Shannon Mercatante, a 19-year-old UF public relations junior and vice president of Swamp Records. “Our team worked creating a marketing plan for the goals of the collective, seeyousoon. The challenge benefits us by allowing us to be creative and learn how to create efficient and realistic plans for growth in the music industry.”
Teams stay connected through Zoom calls, a Facebook group and other internet programs for presenting as well as having the ability to contact the contest judges with questions about their campaigns.
Gray’s three judges come from different roots of the music industry, which provides comprehensive perspectives. One is a marketer for electronic artists at Warner Records, another works with Duke & Jones at The Shalizi Group (which also manages Marshmello) and the final one is a digital marketer with Primary Wave Group.
The final week and presentations started July 13 with teams representing their respective artists each day. With ten minutes to present and five minutes of feedback, judges fill out a rubric while the artists being talked about sit in on the call, a surprise to the teams.
Teams are critiqued on “creativity, execution of goals, are they realistic goals?” Gray said. “Did students take into account the target audience, the objectives, are they tying it back to the objectives and their presentations and thoroughness?”
The Jukebox the Ghost winning team was Lucid Daydream Records, Duke & Jones winning team was Interstate Productions andseeyousoon winning team was Wild Card Records, an almost entirely UF student-based team.
Because the virtual format gives long-distance students a chance to compete, Gray said she would like to continue the Quarantine Marketing Battle in future years. She said she liked the organization of the project and the entrepreneurial mindset needed for the task.
“To anyone out there who kind of has a small idea or a little spark or lightbulb that goes off in the head, just go with it because you never know what’s going to happen,” Gray said. “I thought ten people were going to sign up, my goal was to get ten. And we actually had over 150 people and I just locked down to a 100…Just go with your gut. Especially in college I learned you can literally do anything.”
UF senior Danielle Gray created the Quarantine Marketing Battle to provide an immersive opportunity to those without Summer internships.
Manny Rea is a journalism sophomore and the current health reporter for The Alligator. He worked as a copy editor in his freshman year before moving over to the Avenue in summer 2020. He likes to listen to dollar-bin records and read comics, and he is patiently waiting to go back to movies and concerts.
