Remy Hogan
Staff Writer
The students of Leo Vision have begun advertising on campus for off-campus organizations, and they hope to bring in revenue for the University of La Verne.
Leo Vision is a student-run business that was created in 2015 by the College of Business and Public Management.
The members are current business majors who have already completed the Integrated Business Curriculum program and are currently enrolled in BUS 494.
“We want to make digital signage simple for businesses to use while also making it affordable,” said Gage Buonsanti, member of Leo Vision and senior business administration major with an emphasis in marketing and sales.
Currently, there are only five students in the class, who were chosen by Rita Thakur, associate dean of business.
“I am so proud of the students in this program,” Thakur said.
She chooses the students who join Leo Vision based on two criteria: the first is that a student must have completed the IBC program, and the second is that they are serious about getting involved in their field.
“It’s a lot of work but it’s really worth it,” said Bryant Coronado, CEO of Leo Vision and a senior business administration major.
The program got its start when the Wilson Library wanted to use display units to help market important announcements and information to students.
However, all of the other options available were too expensive.
Christopher Ortiz, a former computer science major who worked in the Library at the time of the program’s start, developed an open-source software that enabled a computer chip to display information on a TV or monitor, which cost only $100, instead of thousands.
The Library wanted to see if there was a possibility of marketing the new product, so the College of Business and Public Management reached out to ConvergeOne, an IT services provider for medium and large enterprises, for help with marketing.
Leo Vision was assembled to take on the project, and ConvergeOne has been supporting the ULV business students ever since.
“For me, this is the highest learning for students,” Thakur said. “It’s run like a real business and the students build it.”
Leo Vision’s first off-campus client is the Red Lounge Hookah and Crepe Cafe in Glendora.
The Red Lounge is offering a discount on crepes to students who present their student ID at checkout.
The agreement with the Red Lounge Cafe is that Leo Vision will create advertisements and marketing materials about this discount that will be projected on the monitors that can be found in departments on campus such as Wilson Library, the Office of Housing and Residential Life and the Campus Center.
“Our services are free as long as we get analytical data from which to come up with a fair cost to bring in revenue for ULV,” Coronado said.
The analytics will help Leo Vision better understand how students respond to their marketing strategies and techniques so that Leo Vision can better assist their clients with their advertising to students.
“We’re all there for the common goal of bettering the product and learning as much as we possibly can,” Buonsanti said.
Current business students who are interested in becoming a member of Leo Vision and who have completed the IBC program can speak with Rita Thakur about signing up for the class.
“This is a living program where each semester is going to be different for each group, but it does work as an internship,” Buonsanti said.
The class can be taken more than once, and students enrolled in the class have the opportunity to take turns performing different roles.
“The most rewarding part to me is being able to apply the last three years of learning to real life stuff and getting a different perspective of what it’s like out there,” Christian Psomas, Leo Vision member and senior business administration major, said.
Remy Hogan can be reached at remy.hogan@laverne.edu.
