Over time, the conversation around the topic of business has shifted from being a source of money and a place for hard-workers, to fueling capitalism and only making the world a worse place, in a cycle which we cannot escape. Marketing is included in this shift of conversation and perspectives. People have begun to only see marketing as fuel for this capitalistic cycle, rather than a way in which we can break it. It has been established that, contrary to current beliefs, marketing has the power to have a positive impact on society and benefit the world (Better Marketing for a Better World, 2022). It’s up to the new generations of marketers to enact this positive and necessary change. Creating an academic course for students in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University is a starting point for this change. This study aims to address the gap in education for business students, specifically in marketing, to understand how marketing can positively impact society.

Food is one of the most universal and uniting human experiences. It is a powerful tool to bring communities together and it is a simple way to bring joy to an individual. This project is an exercise in marketing and entrepreneurship that was inspired by these ideas, which culminated in a fundraiser bake sale to benefit Creighton Community Foundation, a local nonprofit.

Through the use of Arizona State University’s Founders Lab, our group of four Barrett, the Honors College Students completed a research thesis regarding the interest of college students in a sleep light technology product. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pioneered a sleep light technology with the ability to regulate melatonin production and circadian rhythm, resulting in an improvement of sleep quality. The technology was originally invented for astronauts to improve their sleep while in space on a spacecraft. Utilizing this technology, our group performed extensive market research with the intention of determining if college students would be interested in purchasing a consumer product incorporating the sleep light technology. We created a brand called Rhythm Illumination and began by building a website and brand guide. Next, we utilized Google Forms to generate responses to a variety of questions regarding current sleep habits, current sleep problems, and whether or not there was interest in a product like this. After determining that college students have room for sleep quality improvement and there is interest in this kind of product, we worked towards our goal of gaining traction for the product. We decided to utilize both Google Analytics results and a Zoom event’s attendance as proof of interest in our product. Google Analytics revealed over one hundred unique users on our Rhythm Illumination website. We also had eleven event attendees. Between these two tools, our team was able to conclude that there is interest among college students for a consumer product utilizing NASA’s sleep light technology.