Throwing parties. Testing out the newest games. Giveaways.
It might sound like fun and games, but for University senior Nick Stoolman, it’s all a part of his job description.
Stoolman is the University’s EA company representative.
Stoolman represents EA Sports, EA Games and EA Sports Big. His job is to make sure the company has a presence at the University.
“The experience has been second to none and unparalleled to any other internship,” Stoolman said.
Stoolman’s job is part of a growing trend on campuses across the country.
“It has certainly been going on for eight or nine years,” said Marian Friestad, Lundquist College of Business associate dean and associate professor of marketing. “It’s not new, but I think as mass media gets more expensive, the use of it has grown.”
Summer Bradley, a project manager with EA, said her company started the project as a way to reach a large consumer base.
“We want to get out there with the consumers,” Bradley said. “We want to play with them, not just sell to them. We want to
engage people.”
EA isn’t the only company with a representative on campus. Sophomore Eli McCarrel represents Sports Illustrated On Campus; Colleen McClure is a Nike representative. Other companies such as Red Bull and Playboy also have a presence here.
Axe, a company that sells body spray for men, has recently strewn women’s thong underwear around campus in an attempt to attract a campus representative for next fall. Last week, about a half dozen thongs were placed in a McKenzie Hall classroom and more were placed in a hallway in the building.
Advertising is generally
allowed as a display of free speech unless it is done in a classroom, office or residence hall, University spokeswoman Pauline Austin said. The University has no policies about students working as representatives.
“Companies come to me all the time, but I don’t help them hire students,” Austin said. “When a company wants students to go to Cancun and get drunk on film I certainly don’t help them.”
Stoolman has been involved with EA since his freshman year at the University when he met the then-current representative at the Warsaw Sports Business Club. He immediately helped putting up fliers and posters around campus to publicize events, eventually working his way to his current position.
“I was set on becoming the rep,” Stoolman said. “As soon as I found out about it I went back and told my roommate, ‘I’m gonna have that job someday.’”
The job, which he has now had for two years, keeps him busy. He said he works an average of about 20 hours per week planning and executing different events.
Stoolman, two interns and a marketing team are constantly planning tournaments around campus in the residence halls, at Big City Gaming and at the fraternity houses.
Last fall, Stoolman and his team organized a 64-player “Madden” tournament. He is currently organizing the 2nd-annual EA Sports Fight Night Fraternity Challenge, a tournament involving several of the fraternities on campus. At the event, Stoolman will give away T-shirts, stickers, hats and games to
participants. One participant will
receive 13 EA games.
EA has also provided Stoolman with a summer internship at EA headquarters as a project marketing intern.
“They take care of me,” Stoolman said. “EA has been a really good relationship to have. I have two years’ experience with a Fortune 100 company.”
Sports Illustrated’s McCarrel has had a similar experience. He is the company’s first representative at the University.
McCarrel had just finished his senior year of high school
when his brother who worked at Sports Illustrated told him the company was looking to launch a new magazine: Sports Illustrated On Campus.
McCarrel called Sports Illustrated and landed an internship.
“I said, ‘We want the magazine,’ and sold Oregon to them before I was a student,” McCarrel said.
McCarrel now plans and executes promotional events for Sports Illustrated and its advertisers.

One event McCarrel planned was a promotion for a Dr. Marten movie called “Veer.” The company selected 15 campuses at which to show the movie, and the University was one of them. McCarrel and his team of four others had to plan the event and, more importantly, make sure students were there.
But the showing was slated for the third day of school, giving his team only three days to promote the event.
“It’s our job as consultants to get people to come,” McCarrel said. “We ended up earning Campus Consultants of the Week for that event.”
McCarrel and his team use
what he calls “guerrilla marketing,” which includes rave cards, posters, fliers and tabling. They also
hold giveaways.
Stoolman’s and McCarrel’s promotional efforts have elicited a variety of responses from students.
When junior Jessica Rowan saw the Axe thongs on a bench last week, she said she thought they might be part of an anti-rape campaign — until she read the message.

“I personally think it’s degrading to both men and women,” she said. “On the whole I don’t understand it, but I think it’s inappropriate.”
Senior Jon Winger said he saw how the advertising campaign might be deemed inappropriate, but it needed to be taken with “a grain of salt.” Axe commercials are done comically, he said, and if people were aware of the entire campaign, they might understand it better.
“It’s meant to be humorous; just laugh about it,” he said.
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News Editor Ayisha Yahya contributed to this report