In March, the participants of the International Master in Marketing spent two days in Berlin as part of their international business trip. They had the opportunity to visit top Marketing companies, meet up with EADA alumni currently working in the sector and expand their network.
According to Antony Poole, director of the International Master in Marketing, “the international trip gives participants the chance to see first-hand examples of the latest trends in marketing and speak to EADA alumni who work for interesting companies”. He adds that, “they also get to discover the day-to-day workings and challenges of a marketing department and discover new job opportunities.”
The trip began with a visit to Invincible Brands where two EADA alumni currently work: Michela Secci (Master in Marketing 2015) and Marta Cargnigo (Master in Marketing 2018). Invincible Brands is a German company which was set up in 2015 to create and develop direct-to-consumer brands using influencers. Its current marketing platform uses social media to reach a global audience of more than 100 million people every month.
During their visit, our participants met the co-founder and CEO of Invincible Brands, Bjorn Keune who explained why he set up the company, how they developed their unique business model and how the company has grown so quickly.
They also spoke to Monique Hoell, who is the Managing Director of Hellobody (the leading brand at Invincible), who described how the concept of Hellobody was developed and deepened during the brand-building process. Then Michela, Marta and their colleagues described a typical day at Invincible Brands which included how they work with influencers and how they identify emerging trends and align the development of new products with the trend. Their visit ended with an opportunity to try out the different branded products at Invincible and talk to the brand managers.
In the evening, the participants attended an event organised by the EADA Careers department and the EADA Alumni community to which former EADA students currently working in Berlin were also invited. This was an excellent networking opportunity for this year’s participants to find out from EADA alumni about their experiences at the business school and their professional careers to date.
The second day of the trip took them to Axel Springer, which is the largest publishing group in Germany and one of the biggest in Europe. The participants met up with Christopher Stamm (Master in Management 2015) who organised a fascinating visit which started with the history of the group and ended with the participants watching pitch rehearsals to investors from various entrepreneur groups in APX, which is the start-up accelerator that Axel Springer has set up with Porsche.
This visit gave the participants a more detailed view of how the media industry is changing as well as the challenges of the new business models for communication.
Leanne Fuentes is one of this year’s participants and she told us that the visit to Axel Springer “…did not disappoint. They talked to us about the history of the company and the different projects that they are involved in. We also got to hear about new business ideas and vote on the one we thought was the best”.
This trip has given me the opportunity to learn from great professionals and get to know my classmates better
Apart from the scheduled visits and business school events, our participants also had the chance to discover the city of Berlin which is the new centre of business activity in Europe and is becoming increasingly attractive to entrepreneurs and companies from all over the world.
Leanne adds that her international trip has given her “the opportunity to learn from great professionals, get to know my classmates better and learn about the German culture. We were lucky that the programme director, Antony Poole and our professor of Strategic Marketing, Alexis Mavrommatis could accompany us on this trip as they are both experts in their fields and care about the future success of their students.”