LeBow Students Conduct Market Research for Cherry Blossom Festival

For the fifth year in a row, the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia asked a group of LeBow College of Business MBA students to conduct market research for the annual Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival. Each spring Philadelphia becomes a town of festivals celebrating everything from arts and music to food and drink. The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival is a celebration of the coming of spring and Japanese food and culture with 12 days of events all over the city and the suburbs.

Aaron Dilliplane, assistant director of the Japan America Society, says the LeBow students’ suggestions have been helpful in making sure that the organization is doing all that it can to make the festival enjoyable for its audience.

Working under the advisement of LeBow marketing professor Lawrence Duke, PhD, the students also worked to capture the demographic of the audience in order to identify potential corporate sponsors.

“This has been a good relationship for us, and we really enjoyed this experience. We already have some ideas to help improve the festival for next year,” said Dilliplane.

Some of the new ideas for next year include adding more activities for young children. The group will also investigate expanding its social media efforts.

The students also found that the organization is doing a good job of attracting repeat visitors. This year, its return rate has improved over previous years. This high rate of return helped the festival to achieve a new record of over 12,000 attendees For its work on behalf of the festival, the organization also listed Drexel LeBow as a sponsor.

regions: Philadelphia

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