Los Angeles, CA, August 2, 2001 – The latest chapter in the ongoing rivalry between the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) is taking place at a rather unlikely location: the corporate headquarters of KB Home (NYSE: KBH), one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S. and France.
KB Home has launched its first annual KB Home Marketing Challenge, in which graduate students from both schools are competing against each other to come up with a winning business idea for the Company. The program -- which also serves as a two-month summer internship for the students -- challenges each team to conceive and develop a marketing program, promotion, or service that will increase overall sales and traffic to KB Home communities. At the end of the internship, the competing teams will present their ideas directly to KB Home Chairman and CEO Bruce Karatz, and the winning idea will be implemented by KB Home.
"This innovative new program is a win-win for everyone involved," said Karatz. "These highly motivated students will be getting first-hand experience in developing a comprehensive corporate marketing program for a Fortune 500 company and the chance to actually see their ideas implemented, and KB Home gets the benefit of the freshest minds thinking about our business. Given KB Home's market niche of first-time and first-move-up homebuyers, these young career-minded people are also our target consumers, which makes their ideas and insights especially compelling."
The two teams consist of three students from The Anderson School at UCLA, and three students from USC's Marshall MBA program. Both the UCLA and USC students will be teamed with a design student from Platt College in Los Angeles to assist with the creative aspects of the marketing campaigns. The teams will work opposite each other in KB Home's corporate headquarters, alongside the Company's marketing, advertising, and public relations departments.
"This program puts a fun and competitive twist on the traditional summer internship for these talented students," said Wendy Marlett, KB Home's Vice President of Marketing, who is overseeing the program. "The energy of these two teams is contagious as they strive to come up with new and creative ways to market KB Home to our target audiences. We look forward to learning as much from them as they do from us during their time here at KB Home."
Marlett added, "This program has the added benefit of serving as an ideal method of recruiting the best and brightest talent to KB Home in the future."
The final presentation of each team's "big idea" will take place on August 28, 2001. The ideas should be innovative, revenue-generating, and cost-effective. Each proposal must include: the rationale for the idea; target audiences; supporting research; the expected impact on traffic and sales; promotional plans (media, advertising, public relations, collateral materials, etc.); and a comprehensive budget and timeline. The Challenge ends August 31, 2001 with an awards luncheon.
KB Home is one of America's largest homebuilders with domestic operating divisions in some of the fastest-growing areas of the country including California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas and Florida. Kaufman & Broad S.A., the Company's majority-owned subsidiary, is one of the largest homebuilders in France. In fiscal 2000, the Company delivered homes to 22,847 families in the United States and France. It also operates a full-service mortgage company for the convenience of its buyers. Founded in 1957, KB Home is a Fortune 500 Company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "KBH." For more information about any of KB Home's new home communities, call 888-KB-HOMES or visit the Company's Web site at www.kbhome.com.
For more information contact:
Carrie Gilbreth
Magnet Communications
909.272.1888
cgilbreth@magnetcom.com