Launching the Campaign

Failure to launch the campaign the first time around because, by instinct, I chose the currency of payment to be in the Philippine Peso for the Adwords account.

The challenge instructed us to make a new account and change the currency. Team Sexy did and we are off.

We started out with two campaigns.
Campaign one is geared toward the service that The Sexy Chef provided and Campaign two is based on area location searches.

Our total daily budget is $50.00 a day. $30.00 for campaign 1 and $20.00 for campaign 2.

Will post post updates on our campaigns in the following days.

Meeting The Sexy Chefs

Meeting The Sexy Chefs

After getting an email from Rachel Alejandro telling us that they were very interested in working with us in the Google Online Marketing Challenge, we agreed to meet on a thursday at 3pm in one of the posh restaurants in Serendra at Fort Bonifacio

Some might say I deviously planned the meeting on a Thursday so that my other group mates could not meet Rachel and Barni Alejandro of the Sexy Chef Cafe. But it was really an unfortunate coincidence that they had Business Economics class that afternoon...honest (with devilish smile painted across my face).

So I went to Serendra to meet the Sexy Chefs and I was excited and nervous at the same time. If some people get butterflies in their stomach, I felt like I had a swarm of bees in mine. It's not everyday that a 'normal' person like myself get a chance to meet famous sibling tandem like Rachel and Barni. The only thing that me and my brother are famous for is our daily fight over the television's remote control but other than it's pretty ho-hum.

When I met the Sexy Chefs, I didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. They were very nice and I can see from the way they answered my questions that they are really passionate about their business. I love seeing entrepreneurs talking about their business, their energy sometimes rubs off you.

So I explained to them the mechanics of the Google Online Marketing Challenge and they were really excited about the project because apparently they were also trying to figure out how to promote their business online.

I was very happy on the outcome of the meeting and was pleased to report to my team and our Professors that the Sexy Chef Cafe is now on board!

*Copied from www.kenreyeslao.blogspot.com

Pitching GOMCHA to The Sexy Chef Cafe

Getting in Touch with Rachel Alejandro

Rachel Alejandro is one half of The Sexy Chef Cafe and I would think it might be difficult to get in touch with her directly since she might be busy with her career as a singer/entertainer. But I was wrong.

Our Google Marketing Challenge Team decided to contact and to request Rachel and Barni Alejandro (The Sexy Chef Cafe) to be our partner company who will participate in this global student competition. We felt that the project would be mutually beneficial since we will be able to understand and analyze how a small company can utilize Google Adwords to improve their business.

Filipinos love social networking sites like Multiply and a lot of us use these sites for entrepreneurial en devours. I was thinking that if we tried to contact them through the Sexy Chef multiply site then there would be a larger chance that she would be the one to personally read it compared to just sending an email through their company email address where a secretary might just disregard it.

So we sent her a message explaining the competition and that there was no obligation for the company to continue the Adwords campaign after the competition was over. We were like crossing our fingers waiting for a reply and luckily they said yes to the competition and are willing to meet to discuss the project more thoroughly.

*Copied from www.kenreyeslao.blogspot.com

Team Sexy

We are Team SEXY. We called ourselves Team SEXY, aside from the "obvious" reasons, because our team partnered with a healthy food delivery service company called The Sexy Chef Cafe. This is our first time to participate in the Google Online Marketing Challenge and this is also the first time our school is represented in this global competition.

TEAM SEXY:

The Leader: Kenneth Reyes-Lao aka "KendiMan"

Kenneth is used to work for Liwayway Marketing Corporation as their production plant manager in China when he was 23. After working in China, he decided to take up his MBA in the Asian Institute of Management. He has no background in online marketing or IT but believes that we are all here to learn new things and there's no better way to start learning than participating in the Google Online Marketing Challenge.


The Tactician: Swapnadeep Bhattacharyya aka "DEEP"

Deep has worked for around 6 years and his experience spans across the IT and manufacturing industry. Before joining the Asian Institute of Management, he worked for one of the largest software firms in Asia, Tata Consultancy Services. He plans to be a Management/Strategic Consultant in the future.


The IT expert: Shailaja Sony aka "SONY"

Sony has done work on IT engineering and is now pursuing and MBA degree in the Asian Institute of Management. She has worked for Tata Consultancy Services and the Indian Institute of Technology.


Follow TEAM SEXY in this wild competition called GOOGLE Online Marketing Challenge and find out more about The Sexy Chef Cafe on this blog.

Guest Lecturer Regnard Raquedan

Regnard Raquedan is a 2008 MBA graduate of the Asian Institute of Management. He is more known among the people in AIM as the AIM Blogger because of the blog he created when he was still a student.

He is a guest lecturer in AIM's first online elective. Find out more about Regnard in his blog The AIM Blogger

Professor Richard Cruz

Professor Richard Cruz is currently teaching Marketing and Finance. He is a core faculty in the MBA Program of the W.SyCip Graduate School of Business in the Asian Institute of Management.

Professor Cruz along with Professor Ortigas pioneered the AIM Online Marketing elective. With the help of guest lecturer Regnard Raquedan they have successfully concluded the first Online Marketing elective.

Professor Gaston Ortigas

Professor Gaston "Titos" Ortigas has been a full time professor at the Asian Institute of Management since 1986. His teaching assignments ranges from Strategic Planning, Entrepreneurship to TQM and Operations Management.

Professor Ortigas along with Professor Cruz pioneered the AIM Online Marketing elective. With guest lecturer Regnard Raquedan they have successfully concluded the first online marketing elective

Google Online Marketing Challenge 2009

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global student online marketing competition developed by professors in collaboration with Google to provide students with practical online marketing experience.

This is the first time where the ASIAN INSTITUTE of MANAGEMENT has entered this competition. In this year's competition we are fielding 3 teams which is tasked to be online marketing consultants to a currently existing company who has a website and has not participated or used the google adwords service in their marketing campaign.

Each team is given a $200 Google Adwords budget to use for their respective partner companies and based on Google's scoring criteria they will select a global winner of the competition. The winning team, along with their professor, will journey into the heart of Google, the Googleplex which is located in Mountain View California.

*Regional winners will get to visit their local google office.

The 2008 Google Online Marketing Challenge saw around 1600 student teams from 47 countries.

Who will win this year's challenge?

The Asian Institute of Management

In 1965, the top schools in the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle and the University of the Philippines approached the Ford Foundation with competing financial assistance proposals to upgrade their respective business school offerings.

However the Ford Foundation had a larger vision in mind. That vision was to elevate business education in the entire Asian Region. Ford Foundation urged the three leading universities to consolidate their efforts to build one of the premiere business schools in Asia.

In 1968, the consortium with Harvard University as project grant administrator formed the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, Philippines.

In 2009, the Asian Institute of Management celebrates its 41st year as one of the leading Business Schools in the Asian Region.

AIM Online Marketing

The Asian Institute of Management (AIM) has introduced the first online marketing class to be offered to its students. This will be the official blog for the class and hopefully future classes who would take on the challenge of marketing online.

The class is headed by Professor Richard Cruz and Professor Titos Ortigas and they are being assisted by The AIM Blogger himself Regnard Raquedan.

The current elective of Online Marketing is offered to the May Batch 2008 of the AIM 16-month MBA Program. The elective revolves around the Google's 2009 Online Marketing Challenge.

Follow our experience as we delve into a whole different world of marketing through this blog.