Student-led J. Blue Agency Serves as Marketing Masterminds
Monday morning, 8am, inside Creighton University’s Heider College of Business at the Harper Center, 15 students are already in a team meeting—reviewing client deliverables, workshopping pitches, acting like they run a real marketing agency. Because they do.
Meet J. Blue, a full-service marketing agency run entirely by Creighton students. Started in 2020 with one bank client and eight students, it’s now in its 11th cohort, with nine active clients ranging from a scholarship foundation for athletes to a woodworker who carves stories into his pieces.
These students are convincing established business owners and start-up entrepreneurs to trust them with their brands, and it’s working. “I feel like I’m ready for a job at this point,” said Belle Adams, a senior from Stillwater, MN, and general manager of the firm. “And I attribute it to this agency because it is a real workplace.”
“Agency Practicum I & II” are anything but typical college classes. Running for two semesters with three credits each term, students first join a team under an account manager. Second semester, they step into a leadership role in an agency infrastructure that includes scope-of-work documents, client pitches, skill workshops, mid-semester presentations, and all the client work happening outside of class. “We get so much real-world experience working with clients that you can’t get from anything else,” said Matthew Blair, a junior from Omaha, NE, who serves as the firm’s director of Internal Promotions and Public Relations. “Working with other like-minded individuals who want to get that experience is awesome. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Heider College of Business dean Dr. Anthony Hendrickson pitched the idea of a student-run marketing agency to Associate Professor of Practice Tim McMahon, the same faculty member who launched the world’s first fully student-run Apple store at Creighton a decade earlier. The experiment worked, so McMahon was asked to stand up another student venture. “You can teach marketing but that doesn’t mean students are ready to perform in the real world,” McMahon said. “It is all about the practice.”
Clients drive everything for J. Blue. The firm has served businesses ranging from a home remodeling company in Nebraska to a professional dog walker in New York. “That was probably our most random client,” Adams said of the canine business. “They’re not using our agency anymore, but it was fun while it lasted.”
For the Soraya Foundation that benefits athletes pursuing high education, J. Blue designers created a logo that took eight iterations. The group has also developed Soraya’s full website, launched Instagram and Facebook pages, created a brand book, established a donor program, and even helped market a partnership with an Olympic gold medalist.
For Village Woodworking in Omaha, the team is recording a storytelling video focused on the artist behind the pieces. The owner was baffled when J. Blue students suggested the self-focused video: “Why would I talk about myself? I have all this awesome wood,” he told his account team. The students’ response: “Your products speak for themselves. People want to see the heart you bring to the product. That’s the differentiator.”
These students don’t apologize for their age—they weaponize it. They grew up in the digital world their clients are desperate to crack. They are the market many clients are trying to reach, and they understand it better than anyone. “A lot of people have to spend a lot of hours studying it,” Blair said. “We’re just immersed in it.”
For a Creighton-based client, J. Blue recently latched onto the nostalgic “2016 Trend” and produced a TikTok video by scraping together Bluejay fraternity photos from 2016. The client didn’t exactly get it but they rolled with it and got strong results. “We’re not trying to act like we’re more qualified than we are,” Adams said. “But we bring a perspective that a lot of people can’t bring.”
In the real world, clients say no. A lot. To logo concepts, to social media ideas, even to long-term relationships. A three-year J. Blue client recently hired an in-house marketer and walked. The business lesson stung. The life lesson landed harder. “You don’t get told ‘no’ much in some aspects of your life as a college student,” Adams reflected. “Having to pivot and deal with that disappointment has definitely been my biggest learning experience.”
Last semester, the team transitioned leadership midway through the semester, taking on new roles and responsibilities. It wasn’t their most successful semester in terms of client numbers. But the team grew closer and laid the foundation for the payoff: This semester has been one of the most successful ever, with a thriving team culture and three new clients since January. “None of us were going to let it slip through the cracks,” Blair said of last year’s pivot.
J. Blue is just getting started, and its students are entering the workforce more battle-tested than most. The group is sporting a new sweatshirt around campus that sells their brand with the slogan: “Student minds. Great impact.” They are launching a podcast this semester—possibly a first among student groups at Creighton. They are learning to market themselves while doing the work. And the relationships forming across clients, cohorts, majors, and class years? No classroom can build those. “It never feels like work,” Adams said. “It’s always just kind of fun to meet with our group.”
