Two sections of a marketing class taught by Dr. Angie Kovarik, assistant professor of business administration, met for a mock trade show at Bemidji’s downtown LaunchPad facility on Nov. 30. In place of its weekly Entrepreneur Meet-Up, LaunchPad invited entrepreneurs and members of the Bemidji community to visit student groups and explore their academic work in trade show-style booths.

“At the beginning of the semester, the students enrolled in Introduction to Marketing were asked to come up with a new product idea,” Kovarik said. “As the semester progressed, we incorporated marketing concepts from the text into their products. They were able to explore areas of marketing such as the marketing mix, competitive review, packaging/labeling, product positioning, branding and created a SWOT analysis, among other things.

“The teams worked very hard throughout the semester to prepare for the grand finale — the mock trade show. At the mock trade show, local entrepreneurs that are members of Launchpad were able to evaluate the student’s products and offer feedback for improvement,” she said. “Overall, I think they did an excellent job. We hope to do this again next semester.”