Description of the video:

Bloomington Brands is an experiential education program that allows first-year, second-year grad students, as well as undergrad students, both marketing and finance, to have the opportunity to get some real world experience managing a brand on behalf of the Scotts Miracle-Gro company while they're in school.

Bloomington Brands is like an internship that you can have during the school year. You get some more liberties that even a brand manager starting in their first job doesn't have, simply because you're focusing on every aspect of that product.

The Brands program is an opportunity to practice the craft of brand management, in real time, with real money.

Students get full autonomy and control of the Osmocote brand, a brand with national reach and distribution.

We're our own advertising agency. So we operate like an ad agency in addition to a brand. That gives the student an opportunity to do things that they won't do in an internship, and probably won't even do in the first few assignments at whatever CPG company they go to.

One of the things I really enjoy most is being able to take the opportunity, each and every year, to come back and teach a Monday night class at Bloomington Brands. Love to be able to give back. Love to be able to get to know the students. Love to be able to talk to the students about one, some of the things going on in my business. But two, also, some of the things that I've learned along the way, and some of the tips and tricks and things that I've found that have helped me be successful.

When you're in a smaller setting, you have more opportunities to speak up, and talk to your teammates, and engage with one another on your opinions and your thought processes. But also, you get to work with Bob, and he has so much experience in the business, so you can have more one on one time with him.

You're not just reading a case study about something that may have happened 5, 10, 15, years ago. You're having the opportunity and the challenge of embracing real world business problems in real time.

When I came in, I was one of the younger students, had a little bit less experience. But I think Brands showed me that I could do this and develop my confidence. A lot of people look on the program really fondly, and like to think of their experience at Bloomington Brands as a really formative part of their time here at Kelley. It's an excellent program to show employers that you're definitely a cut above the rest.