Emily VanMeter:
Independent Study in Japan

During the winter break, Emily VanMeter, a second-year, day MBA student, spent two weeks in Japan where she visited Aflac for two full days to interview managers from the insurance company’s Marketing, Training and Development, Finance, and Corporate Governance Departments.

Emily, who had an internship with Aflac at the corporate headquarters in Columbus, Georgia last summer, decided to take advantage of the winter break to pick up some academic credit and international business exposure while visiting her cousins stationed with the military at Camp Zama, a fifty-minute train ride from Aflac’s office in Shinjuku, Japan. 

Emily says that Aflac’s famous duck appears in commercials in Japan, but what she found most interesting about Aflac’s marketing was the sales strategy. “Aflac’s main product in Japan is their cancer policies. The interesting thing is that most of these product sales are done by door-to-door sales, a marketing strategy that is no longer present or accepted in the United States.”

Once she completes her paper, which examines Aflac’s strategy for doing business in Japan, Emily will receive three hours of academic credit for the trip.