Marketing Mavericks
Interns All in for Partnership Marketing
Emily Keaton (HCB, ’23) found herself at the center of the action at the 2023 Daytona 500 race, appearing on national TV as part of the NASCAR Victory Lane post-race show.
A student in Haslam’s Master of Science in Marketing program at the time, Keaton was interning with Gatlinburg-based Sugarlands Distilling Company. Sugarlands engages in partnership marketing, a strategy that creates mutually beneficial connections between brands and public figures. Keaton attended the Daytona 500 to take photos for the company’s social media accounts as part of their partnership with a NASCAR driver. When their driver won the race, Keaton was swept up in the victory excitement. “People dream about doing this and I didn’t even know what was going on,” she says. “It was an awesome experience.”
Interns at Sugarlands have unique experiences through the company’s many partnerships with household sports events and public figures, including Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his wife, Amy, the PGA of America, Folds of Honor, Eggo, O.A.R., the Boston Red Sox, the Golic family, and more.
Sugarlands has partnered with the MS in Marketing program since 2022, participating in class visits and inviting students to work on real-world research projects. Ned Vickers, co-founder and president of Sugarlands, says the collaboration arose from a need for more support in partnership marketing. So far, they have brought on five interns from the Haslam master’s program and hired four of them for full-time positions, including Emily Keaton and her former classmate, Harrison Mullaney (HCB, ’23). “It’s been a great way for the interns to gain experience, and for us to get some really intelligent people on our team,” says Vickers.
From his first interaction with Haslam students, Vickers was impressed. “They are really engaged and focused, ask great questions, and always focus on the end goal,” he says. “We typically have a lot of students from the MS in Marketing program apply for internships and it’s a challenge to decide who to bring in.”
For Mullaney, the experience of interning and now working for Sugarlands provided a back-door entrance to his dream of working in sports. “The marketing partnerships with sports events and celebrities is the doorway for me to enter that space,” he says. “I don’t know where that will lead, but just being able to be part of the sports world and apply my marketing skills has been great.”
Because Sugarlands has a small team, interns are deeply engaged in marketing efforts. Tasks often include executing social media strategy, scheduling and creating content, monitoring content success, and participating in new product development. “Even when we were interns, they encouraged us to share our ideas,” says Keaton. “It’s a great experience seeing partnerships grow from the ground up, and the team is wonderful to work with both as a student and an employee.”
