A team of enterprising students from Cardiff Metropolitan University have recently been awarded with the Concept 2016 award, after successfully pitching their marketing ideas to local entrepreneur Annette Gee, owner of Taskforce Paintball.
Concept is a three day marketing challenge organised by the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cardiff Metropolitan University which ran from April 6th to 8th. Enterprising students from across the university were encouraged to attend the event in order to put their marketing knowledge to the test and to learn a range of new skills. The students were split into teams and tasked with creating a marketing plan for one of three local businesses. Acting as a team of marketing consultants, the students had three days to generate ideas, produce a plan and present their ideas back to their client. Three enthusiastic local entrepreneurs worked with the teams as partner businesses – Keiran McGaughey of Like An Egg Productions, David Saunders of Agile Therapy and Annette Gee of Taskforce Paintball.
During the three days the students learned about areas such as market research, online marketing, business-to-business marketing and guerrilla marketing. A range of workshops were provided by the staff at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and experienced entrepreneurs Abi Owens (founder of MishMash Management), Kevin Mansell-Abell (founder of That Media Group) and Lee Sharma (founder of Simply Do Ideas), all of whom are ‘Role Models’ under the Welsh Government’s Big Ideas Wales scheme which encourages and supports youth entrepreneurship.
On the final day the students pitched their marketing ideas to the three partner businesses and gained feedback on their ideas and presentations. Team ‘Tinfoil Marketing’ was crowned the winner after the judges decided they had gone over and above the call of duty with their exciting ideas for a video and social media campaign which Annette Gee is now looking to implement within Taskforce Paintball. Annette commented:
‘I was delighted to see the original and innovative way that team “Tinfoil” had approached my brief. It was great to get a marketing perspective from the age group I am targeting for my Paintball activities. I am looking forward to implementing some of the ideas in the forthcoming weeks.’
Team Tinfoil Marketing consisted of a cross-discipline group of students with a wide range of skill-sets: second year Graphic Communication student Jasmine Hutter; Master of Fine Art student Amelia Seren Roberts; Mujo Simakoloyi, who is in the final year of a degree in Business Management with Law and Elise Anderson, a second year Events Management student. Each of the students gained a lot from being involved in Concept including confidence and skills development. Speaking about the impact that Concept had made Jasmine Hutter commented:
‘Concept was a fantastic opportunity to work with a real business within a supportive learning environment. A fast-paced three days, we were kept on our toes having to come up with a high quality marketing plan for Taskforce Paintball whilst attending very inspiring workshops by successful, local entrepreneurs. Personally, I acquired lots of new knowledge and skills which will benefit both my studies and my future career. A great event!’
Although Team Tinfoil Marketing were the final winner, the judges agreed that the standard was very high across all three teams and each of the partner businesses commented that their team had produced ideas that they would take forward within their business. Concept is just one example of the many ways in which the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Cardiff Metropolitan University are helping to link students with local businesses and providing students with real-world experience.