During the second term, the students of the International Master in Tourism & Hospitality Management participatein The Marketing Challenge, a hands-on learning experience which consists of creating a Marketing plan for a real company. We talked to the five components of the winner team, Carol (China), Masha (Russia), Philippe (France), Florinda (Angola) and Sergi (Spain) to learn more about this challenging experience.
The company that participated in the Marketing Challenge this year was Las Muns, the most successful empanadas chain in Europe, co-founded in 2013 by EADA MBA Alumnus Mariano Najiles.
What is the Marketing Challenge?
CAROL: The Marketing Challenge is a hands-on opportunity for EADA students to understand challenges faced by a company and propose feasible marketing campaigns. By using tools and analysing findings, we are able to better understand customer behaviour and come up with strategic plans that could be adopted by the company eventually.
MASHA: The company evaluates the plans of all of the groups and decides which group is the winner.
What was your Marketing plan about?
PHILIPPE: Our challenge was about building loyalty and customer relations – First of all, we studied the brand closely, its mission, vision and values. Then we developed a customer survey and a in-depth benchmarking about ways to create emotions through each point of contact of the customer journey. As a result, we built a marketing plan, in which all actions were linked to 4 identified key axes of development: The In-store experience, Social media actions, Social responsibility and the communication strategy.
What gave your team the edge to win the Marketing Challenge?
FLORINDA: As a team, we always made sure to align our ideas accordingly with the challenge and we were constantly making sure that all members were on the same page in order to deliver efficient work.
Our goal was to create simple but original ideas that would be easy and not costly to implement. Also, we delivered a clear and appealing PowerPoint that was easy to follow.
What would you highlight from the experience?
PHILIPPE: It was really challenging to put ourselves in Las Muns shoes, trying to adapt to their needs and to come up with new ideas that could really help them and make a difference. It was a nice consulting experience that allowed us to apply our marketing knowledge, and to understand stakes related to retail in Barcelona.
CAROL: We learnt how important is to analyse your competitors in the first step. It was interesting to see how the survey findings indeed matched with our hypothesis.
The marketing challenge has helped us to implement the knowledge acquired during the course and to demonstrate to ourselves that working on our personal skills and emotional intelligence will help us to succeed.
What have you learnt from the Marketing courses and the Marketing Challenge?
FLORINDA: From the marketing course I learnt a lot of great things, to sum up I would say: A billion dollar idea/ product will always just remain as an idea if you don’t implement a smart and efficient marketing plan.
Regarding the marketing challenge, I basically learned how to put in “practice” everything I learnt from the course. It is crucial knowing to whom you want to sell your product and understanding the purchasing behaviour of customers is the key for a business success.
MASHA: Also, each implementation should be justified with a primary or secondary research.
What things learnt during the experience do you think you will apply later on in your professional career?
SERGI: Regardless of who you compete with, you must always give your best. Make sure the whole team knows what to do and give feedback when necessary. The marketing challenge has helped us to implement the knowledge acquired during the course and to demonstrate to ourselves that working on our personal skills and emotional intelligence will help us to succeed.
