Osmocote is unique in so many ways including the way in which it’s managed. For the past five years, the brand has been run by a group of 5–8 students at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Of course, The Scotts Company LLC owns the trademark and inventory and distributes the brand. However, in a special program initiated by Bob Stohler, a retired Scotts executive vice president, Indiana University and Scotts decided to provide resident business school students with real-world marketing experience. To date, 34 students have either worked or are working on the brand.

Students are selected in a highly competitive interview process. MBA students work on the brand for one academic year and receive course credits. One of the MBA students is always a finance major. The others are members of Kelley’s Consumer Marketing Academy. Two undergraduate juniors are selected each summer for a paid internship while the MBA students are away from campus. So far, there have been five undergraduates in the program and all have continued to work on the business when school resumes in the fall.

The students address all aspects of the brand management process. They handle brand strategy, selection of product formula and package, label design, sizing, pricing, merchandising tools, sales materials and consumer advertising and promotional activities. Throughout the year, students are mentored and guided by the program’s director, Bob Stohler.

A key benefit of the arrangement for Scotts is intense exposure for the MBA marketing students at Kelley. Getting to know these students is valuable because Kelley attracts some of the best marketing talent in the country – The Wall Street Journal currently rates IU as the #1 MBA school for brand management in America.

From a Kelley student perspective, working on a brand in real-time is an experience that can’t be had at any other institution. Team members actively participate in the management of a broadly distributed product on projects that range form creating a new SKU or display unit to the management of a consumer mail-in rebate promotion.

Apparently other companies like this program too. Those who don’t migrate to full-time work at Scotts are employed at General Mills, 3M, Nestle, Kimberly-Clark, Sara Lee, Kraft, Target, Kohl’s, Kellogg's, Hasbro, Procter & Gamble, ConAgra, Mead Johnson, Whirlpool and Eli Lilly.

To learn more about the program, visit www.BloomingtonBrands.com. To learn more about the Kelley School, visit www.kelley.iu.edu.