When Delisia Matthews entered academia after a career in marketing and communications research, she knew hands-on experience was the ultimate learning tool.

“Giving them practical experience is what’s most important to me and, of course, what I think the students can benefit from the most,” Matthews says. “You don’t truly understand it unless you immerse yourself in it and live it and breathe it.”

In FTM 387: Textile Brand Communications and Promotions, Matthews teaches advertising from a textiles perspective. Her main method: connecting students with real industry partners and tasking them with crafting ready-to-implement marketing plans. 

In past semesters, the class has collaborated with brands as big as Nordstrom and Walmart. This year, three groups worked with the Carolina Hurricanes to create marketing campaigns, giving them the chance to address real world challenges and help the beloved team better address their market. 

Meeting Industry Needs

At the beginning of the class, students chose which business they would like to collaborate with. This past spring, Matthews set up partnerships with the Carolina Hurricanes, Needle & Thread Co. and Dress Raleigh.

From there, the student groups investigated specific shortcomings to address and target markets to reach. They met project milestones throughout the semester, all leading up to their final product: a marketing campaign plan to be pitched directly to their corporate clients. 

“The Hurricanes asked them to think about people who are Raleigh transplants, those not originally from the area, because it’s booming here,” Matthews says. “How can we get them interested in becoming fans of the Hurricanes, and also help them see how it could be a part of their welcome to the Raleigh-Durham area?”

Fashion and textile management student Ava McRorie was a part of the winning group selected by the Hurricanes marketing team. Her team created a pitch for the Hurricanes to implement regular pop-up shops into their off-season at local breweries. 

“We wanted to forget the image of the hockey team and make it more of a community thing, so that’s why we’re bringing it to a brewery,” McRorie says.

By doing extensive customer and market research, they were able to create a campaign that honed in on their target audience and utilized resources already available to the team. They created pitches for hashtag campaigns, games to offer deals to customers, and fully fleshed out how their ideas would broaden their audience and encourage off-season, community based engagement with the brand.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

“I don’t know how many professional sports teams exist in the same city as a premier public textiles university, but we obviously do, and that’s a fantastic resource,” says Natalie Gore, the Senior Marketing Coordinator for the Carolina Hurricanes.

As a recent graduate of NC State, Gore felt confident that their closest neighbor could also be their most valuable asset. Her two-person team supports customer communications via email and their mobile app, as well as paid advertising and retail marketing. 

“It’s super helpful just in general to have the students involved, pitching ideas and engaging with us, because we can only handle so much,” Gore says. 

Not only is the collaboration a weight off their shoulders, but it also brings fresh ideas from younger perspectives. Students are more than enthusiastic to contribute to brands they know and love, all while gaining invaluable experience with real-world problems solving.

“This was genuinely perfect for my resume because I want to go into sports merchandising, so it was such good exposure for me,” McRorie says.

“I think it’s sometimes hard to get your foot in the door with sports, especially when you’re young and in college. Partnering with Wilson gives the students some experience with sports and a contact there,” Gore says.

“I don’t know how many professional sports teams exist in the same city as a premier public textiles university.”

Matthews says the marriage between industry and academia is an integral piece of the Wilson College’s effectiveness. As a teacher, she added, working with real-world clients helps her stay in touch with industry needs to create even more relevant class materials.

Practical Learning

Natalie Gore and her colleague Alex Brody visited the class to speak about what they hoped the project could help them address: Where do they struggle, and how can students investigate more about the brand and find problems to address? 

It’s one thing for industry partners to speak in class about their marketing needs — it’s a whole other experience to be in the sports environment and feel the energy of the brand. The groups were invited to visit the Carolina Pro Shop, the in-house store of merchandise, in the Lenovo Center Stadium. 

“We were getting a better sense of their style and how they want their brand to be seen,” McRorie says. “What is their actual scope, and what do they have control over as a department?”

After developing their projects, with regular check-ins with their industry partners, the students pitched their ideas in a ‘Shark Tank’ style show. 

McRorie said the experience was uniquely high pressure. She was speaking to professionals in the field about their own company, as opposed to her classmates and teachers.

“It made me feel a lot more empowered because I proved that I can actually present and I can talk to people that are intimidating,” McRorie says.

This summer, McRorie is interning with Under Armour, where she presents regularly in front of hundreds of people. The opportunity to work with the Hurricanes her junior year was invaluable as a rehearsal for her future career in sports merchandising. 

Gore says the partnership was incredibly helpful for her marketing team, and that they hope to implement the pitches into new campaigns post-playoffs. Future collaborations in marketing with Matthews’ class, as well as in design and apparel, are on her radar.

“We’re hoping to just expand from here,” Gore says. “The students were super excited. That always makes us really excited, too.”