On Monday, June 18th, 2012, participants in the Seeds to Trees Program visited and toured The Garage Team Mazda. Located in Irvine, this full service ad agency for Mazda USA, creates, produces and delivers all the ads for the auto manufacturer using a variety of advertising media.

On the tour the students saw the creative and development department, where the ads start with conceptual and progress to ideas, a “coming to life.”. Next they went to the production department, where television and other broadcast advertisements are created, produced, and then filmed on location.

The digital media department, one of the largest growing media areas, was filled with story boards and final production shots of their new web campaign. We were the first to see a new creative mail campaign in the final production stages, one to be mailed out soon.

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) group explained to us both the importance of understanding the customer’s wants and needs and the needs to build relationships in order to spend advertising dollars on the customer’s target market.

Having received training in Digital Media and Marketing with instructor John Russo, the students experienced a company setting where media, marketing, and advertising come to life.

Thank you to Tom Nickerson of The Garage Team Mazda and to John Russo for coordinating this tour and allowing the students to experience the world of Marketing and Advertising.