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MBA INSIDER: SAMPLE APPLICATION ESSAYS Emory (Goizueta): Essay 1 QUESTION: List one of your most significant professional or organizational accomplishments. Describe your precise role in the event and how it has helped to shape your management skills.
Most of my professional life has been spent developing marketing strategy to meet such diverse goals as increasing sales of vampire-themed books and converting NASCAR® fans into loyal grocery shoppers. But one thing that most of my projects have in common is the use of specific demographic and psychographic information to develop impactful programs. The best example of my passion for finding intimate, targeted ways to reach a marketplace, as well as my personal management style of collective creativity, is my own company, [deleted].
[Deleted] is a bottled water product I developed in an attempt to transfer the bespoke trend to a consumable product. The bespoke trend has been growing in popularity over the past eight-to-ten years, primarily in the 12-to-35-year-old female market. It is evidenced in the fashion industry by the proliferation of clothing emblazoned with words like "flirt," and in the beauty industry with the renaming of make-up shades from bland, descriptive titles like "dusty pink," to creative, evocative words like "hypnotic." The trend is a natural evolution of current consumer attitude that has grown toward personal expression and away from pure brand loyalty. [Deleted] is the consumable version of this trend, much like Evian was of the brand-conscious '80s. [Deleted] is available in twelve different "moods," including fussy, pouty, driven, glamorous, and dangerous. The label is designed to appeal to the 12-to-35-year-old female, who is not only the key market for the bespoke trend, but also a large consumer of bottled water. Each bottle is further personalized with an applicable quote from my mother; for example, the fussy bottle states, "Keep acting like that and you're going straight to bed." I have chosen [deleted], for the purpose of this essay, as my most significant accomplishment for two key reasons. First of all, the company has been a way for me to determine, without the constraints of client involvement, what I can accomplish. Developing this company has been difficult, but rewarding. More importantly, it has expanded my management experience and abilities beyond those afforded in a traditional agency environment, where each phase of a project is managed by a different department head, and input is only accepted if it is regarding your area of expertise. For example, a copywriter might comment on syntax, but not on pricing. After developing the concept, I first sought a vendor partnership to supply the water. I chose a bottler whose natural spring water was voted "Best-Tasting" at an international water-tasting festival, over such brands as Vittel, and who had superior standards in water quality and composition. He gave me advice that I used in developing label design, and hiring a printer and trucking company. From there, I enlisted a talented local artist to begin label design. His interpretation of my idea was far superior to what I could have accomplished, and he then gave me suggestions on how to reach potential customers, as well as input regarding price structure. Further, our final label designs, advertising and business forms won the Knoxville Advertising Federation's Addy® awards in every category entered. Once supported by a talented, exceptional team including a trademark attorney, accountant, designer, printer, bottler and distributor, and with such hurdles as UPC designation and pricing structure behind me, I began visiting potential customers and taking orders. I found that even my new customers had valuable ideas and suggestions for improving [deleted]. Overall, I had the opportunity to manage the introduction of [deleted] from concept to consumption, a process that was completed in four months' time. In the end, it was both the selection of vendors, as well as the management of those vendors, that contributed to the product's development. It also gave me the opportunity to include input from these exceptional vendors at every step of the process, thereby enhancing the quality of the product, and of the company. 
BW MALL
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