WE DO BIG THINGS

by Michael Lissauer

Park Bench Marketing Group. An interesting name. It commemorates the fact that Bernard Baruch did his best thinking in Washington D.C’s Lafayette Park and in New York City’s Central Park where it was not uncommon to see him discussing government affairs with such world leaders as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, while sitting on a park bench. The park bench became his trademark.

I created Park Bench in the fall of 2008 as a fully integrated and multidisciplinary in-house marketing group to allow students to work with business professionals on pro bono projects.

These assignments have been undertaken for Executives on Campus (EOC), Timex, Baruch Sustainability Task Force, Business Wire, Ten Second World, Global Kids, La Scuola d’Italia, Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, American Cancer Society, Raich Ende Malter, and the Mayor’s Office of the City of New York. Park Bench also has organized and promoted three conferences: “The Changing Dynamics of Public Relations”, “Yes We Can: Going Viral in a Social Marketing World” and “The New Marketing Revolution: The impact of social media and viral marketing on branding and political advertising.”

The group’s capabilities include marketing, social media, advertising, branding, graphic and web design and public relations. Park Bench is built upon the principal that the greater the opportunity for engagement and critical, creative and collaborative learning with faculty, peers and community, the more likely the chance for future success.

And the success of its students is the true benchmark of Park Bench.

George Gutierrez summed up his experience with Park Bench by saying “Working for Park Bench taught me to interact with clients in a professional setting and work in accordance with their objectives. It also showed me the intricacies and development process of putting together an effective marketing campaign and it taught me to work creatively as a team. It definitely served as my initiation into “real-world” marketing projects.”

“The degree of freedom one receives at Park Bench is a bit overwhelming at first,” said Jeffrey DeJesus. “It’s easy to get sidetracked but it’s great experience because that’s how it is in the real-world.”

Ricky Dalal “liked that we had to work almost always in a group dynamic. Marketing,” he said, “is best learned when in a focused team environment in which there is a sharing of diverse ideas, and it helps enormously with motivation.”