JMU team is Americas winner in worldwide Google Online Marketing Challenge

A team of three James Madison University graduates was named the Americas Region winner of the Google Online Marketing Challenge.  The team consisted of 2012 marketing graduates, Rachel Krause (Alexandria, Va.), Nicole Behr (Basking Ridge, N.J.) and Tara Goode (Gulph Mills, Pa.).  The students competed in the challenge as part of marketing Professor Theresa Clarke's Marketing 490 class.

"My first thought upon hearing the news was, wow," Clarke said.  "I am so proud of the JMU students for performing remarkably well in the challenge.   They are a talented, hard-working group that knows how to meet the bar when I raise it high."

The team won top honors by creating a Google AdWords campaign for Triple C Camp, a a youth camp and challenge course in Charlottesville, Va.  The purpose of the competition is for teams to partner with a business or non-profit website to maximize targeted and relevant traffic to the business or non-profit organization's website.  Krause, Behr and Goode were among 11,000 students in 86 countries to compete in the challenge.  According to Google, the 2012 competition was “the most competitive and diverse pool of teams yet."

In addition to the 2012 Americas Region winners, JMU had another team that placed among the top 15 in the Americas and among the top 60 teams in the world.  

This is the third time in five years that a JMU team has won the America's region.  Each member of the winning teams will receive a new laptop and a trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Ca.

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