Designing, profiling and promoting your own brand? Easy! At least for the Commerce Entrepreneurship and Organisations students. During the Branding project, they dove into the practice of developing and activating new brands. During the final they presented their brand activation to the jury. We attended the final at Tio Rotterdam. One thing became clear: no lack of creative and commercial talents!
Brand activation from a to z
During the Branding project, the second-year and first-year students spent a semester working on their own brand. In teams they dove into the practice of branding and brand activation. From doing market research to designing logos and from developing a promotion strategy to visualizing brand activation. Everything was covered. Boost your brand: after this project, the students will not turn their backs on it!
From sustainable clothing to positive movement
The project ended with an exciting final in which the students competed in teams. The assignment? Choose a brand you've been working on in recent weeks, create a brand activation and pitch your plans - in just one day. As skilled brand managers, the three teams presented their brand activations at the end of the day. They pitched three cool brands: Benessere; a high end sustainable clothing brand, MeJo; a phone that charges on solar energy and No Time For Asian Hate Crime; a positive movement against Asian hatred.
From theory to practice
The students learn a lot from this project, says Tio lecturer Peter-Frank Haarmans. In the past eleven weeks, all facets of branding were discussed: from concept development to brand values and from brand experience to storytelling. Peter-Frank: “Basically, theory and practice are combined during this project, students get started right away. You notice that students appreciate this very much. They can immediately put everything they learn into practice. That is a big advantage.”
Very usefull if you have entrepreneurial ambitions
Second-year students Alec and Joris are also positive about the Branding project, they say enthusiastically. “During the project and the various practical assignments, all kinds of aspects of branding are discussed,” says Alec. “Very interesting, especially if you want to start your own company later on. That really appeals to me.” Joris fully agrees with that. “We have our own company for another project. Then a project about Branding is very useful. In any case, you will hear many practical stories about entrepreneurship at Tio, that is great!”
And the winner is…
After all three teams pitched their ideas, it was time for the jury to deliberate. The jury, consisting of Sander Kroeze, Senior Marketing Manager at Upfield (Unilever) and Tio lecturers Ivonne van Zuilen and Peter-Frank Haarmans, had already decided not much later. The best idea? It turned out to be from team Benessere, consisting of Jorin Talboom, Nova de Kok, Daphne van Peperstraten and Sharee van Vliet! They came up with a brand activation for their high-end clothing brand that wants to sell sustainable and recycled clothing. The team went home with a cheque of € 250.
Happy winners
Jorin from the winning team was pleasantly surprised: “Very cool that we have won! Why I think the jury chose us? It is a social problem and our generation is of course increasingly environmentally aware. With our brand you can make a big difference in a simple way. It was great that we really got to work in practice during the finals and on this project, which was also one of the reasons why I chose Tio.”