Real world Experience

 

LWC/Russell County connection

 

Lindsey Wilson College student Anastasiia Vorobiova is as close as it comes to being an expert on McDonald’s. That made the business administration senior an ideal person to help the international fast-food restaurant chain improve its customer experience with take-out and delivery orders.

Vorobiova was one of four students from the Lindsey Wilson “Marketing Research” who took part in Marketing Research Competition, a national competition sponsored by an Illinois organization of the same name.

Student groups at U.S. colleges and universities were charged with solving a marketing challenge faced by a major corporation. For the Lindsey Wilson quartet, they had to help McDonald’s improve their take-out and delivery orders – something that Vorobiova said hits close to home.

“I’m a huge fan,” said Vorobiova, a junior from Odessa, Ukraine, whose major includes a marketing emphasis. “I tried to think about what I would want to change at McDonald’s when I order there. I get a lot of deliveries to my dorm, so I was thinking how I could improve my experience and what I would want to see when I receive my order. I think that helped me a lot to think about this project as a customer.”

Also, on Vorobiova’s team were fellow Lindsey Wilson students Randall Camfield, a business administration senior from Columbia; David Requejo Hernández, a communication and business administration double junior with an emphasis in marketing from Salamanca, Spain; and Alida Leles, a business administration junior with an emphasis in marketing from Vila Praia de Âncora, Portugal.

“This competition is a great example of the real-world experience that comes along with a Lindsey Wilson business education,” said LWC business faculty member, and Russell County native, JC Phelps, who taught the class and worked closely with the student team.

The students won’t know the competition’s results until 2025, but Phelps said he was impressed with the Lindsey Wilson students’ drive and commitment to the task, which included several late-night work sessions in the college’s J.L. Turner Leadership Center.

“The four students had an interesting perspective because we had four countries represented on the project. So they had a nice globalized view,” he said. “They used lessons and things they’ve learned in their marketing emphasis to present their ideas, and they did a fantastic job. … Their design was as good as anything I have seen. They gave the judges a great visual, and I think that took it to the next level.”

Camfield said he drew on his experiences of arriving at home with the occasional cold and soggy french fries in a take-out bag.

“We looked at different things to help this problem, including looking at having reflective material for inside packaging and moisture-absorbing materials,” he said. “We also looked at french fries’ bags that closed so it would help preserve the temperature and crispiness of products.”

Leles, who helped with the design and the project’s graphics, said she brought ideas from experiences at McDonald’s restaurants in her native Portugal, which she said are different from what U.S. consumers experience.

“It was a really great project, and we had a great time together,” she said.

No matter the outcome, Hernández said the project will affect how he views a McDonald’s restaurant.

“Whenever I go there now, I won’t just be there to eat the food, I will also analyze how to improve things because of focusing on this project,” he said. “Working on this project helped me not to be afraid to go to the next level.”