Discover what you can learn from a wide range of options. Gain solid marketing thinking skills through a variety of activities.
Research Themes
Television commercials, outdoor billboards, display ads on trains, corporate websites, mobile coupons, direct mail, social media, conversations with store clerks, magazine supplements, events, press conferences... Companies use a variety of means to communicate with consumers. How do you let people know about your company's products and services, and how do you get them to like them? Marketing communications is the process of addressing these issues.
The purpose of this seminar is to consider marketing communication and advertising from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In addition, by working on various assignments, students will learn how to collect materials, how to identify problems, how to solve them, and how to give a presentation to communicate their ideas to others.
The main assignment is group work, and there are many opportunities to give presentations to practitioners and to present research findings at other universities to help students progress with their studies with a purpose.
Activities
The diversity of the assignments and the amount of activities are our selling points. Every year, students choose from multiple assignments and contests to work on what they want to do. They go outside the university to gain experience. We also consciously create opportunities to interact with other universities. Recent achievements include the following:
- Joint research presentation conference with other universities "MRGP (Marketing Research Grand Prix)"
This is a student research presentation competition for volunteer faculty who teach marketing-related seminars. It has been held for over 10 years, and every year 8 universities, 40 teams, and 150 to 200 students participate. - Promotional planning proposals for companies
Every year, I propose campaigns for products and services with the cooperation of corporate marketing or advertising departments and major advertising agencies. In the past, I have proposed plans to restaurant chains, major train station buildings, banks, food manufacturers, and others. - Submission to the "Student Advertising Essay Award" by the Kanto Branch of the Japan Association of Advertising Studies
This is a paper award held by the Kanto Branch of the Japan Association of Advertising Studies to encourage research among students. Students work in groups to write their research papers. In the past, the team has won honorable mentions several times. - Participation in the "College Student Opinion Survey Project (FUTURE)" organized by the Tokyo Advertising Association
This project involves five universities in the Tokyo metropolitan area (Aoyama Gakuin, Edogawa, Komazawa, Senshu, and Chiba University of Commerce). Under the guidance of an advisor from the major advertising company Hakuhodo, students will study marketing research while planning, designing, and creating questionnaires, as well as conducting surveys, tabulating, and analyzing the data.
*We will also actively participate in business contests that are held from time to time if there is a desire to do so.
Other activities include a study camp during summer vacation and an exchange camp during spring vacation. At the turning point of each semester, we hold dinner parties for the purpose of student interaction. We also hold Halloween parties, sports tournaments, and field trips. We are active in order to deepen relationships across grade levels.
Student Voices
Yuki Tanaka Department of Service Innovation
Matsumoto Seminar is the only seminar where you can deepen your knowledge of marketing more than anywhere else through "practical activities" that tackle problems from companies that you may know, and "academic activities" such as papers and research presentations. Therefore, every day is a discovery. Activities in the seminar are almost all group activities. We hold a lot of meetings. We output what we discover to everyone, listen to what everyone discovers and input it, and then look for hints to solve the problem. At first, I found the assignments and group activities difficult. But now, I really like it because even if I am at my limit on my own, I can overcome it with everyone. Professor Matsumoto supports me, and depending on the assignment, companies also support me. Matsumoto Seminar is also serious when it comes to playing. It's even more fun to have fun because everyone is there. Since I joined, every day has been fun. For me, joining Matsumoto Seminar has been a great asset in my life.
Department of Service Innovation Ayaki Konno
The first attraction of Matsumoto's seminar is that you can learn about marketing and analysis, but I think the biggest attraction is the group work. There are various types of assignments, such as presentations to companies, writing papers, and collaborations with other universities, and all of them are group work. As you work in groups for several months and meet with other members, you realize that there are many big and small "differences" that can be obstacles in work, such as the pace of work and the fluctuations of motivation, in addition to the perspective and way of thinking. It is difficult to work together with everyone to deal with these "differences" in order to deliver a product with confidence on the day, but it is rewarding and fun to broaden your horizons by coming into contact with differences. I think that the biggest attraction of this seminar is that you can acquire communication skills and teamwork skills that you can use even after you enter society, and that you can expand your interactions with friends you hang out with in private while having some overlapping parts.