L’Oréal Brandstorm 2012: Ideas can take you places
How far can your idea take you?
For three students of the University of the Philippines Diliman (in Quezon City), their idea will fly them to the City of Lights to compete on June 13 against participants from 40 other countries in the international finals of the L’Oréal Brandstorm 2012.
Business economics graduating students Ivania Sy, Stephanie Gabaldon and Regina Dimayuga won the all-expense-paid trip to Paris for topping the recent Brandstorm national competition.
Their group, Team Eves, had the best strategy for marketing their unique product, “Bath Buddies,” designed to enhance mother and child bonding.
Team Eves bested another team from UP, two teams from Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) and two others from De La Salle University (DLSU).
The winner of the international L’Oréal Brandstorm will receive a 10,000-euro worth trip to anywhere in the world.
Team Eves also won special awards: Best in Communication Campaign and People’s Choice Award.
ADMU’s Team Apex, composed of Jackie Kawsek, Geno Tolarbas and Mark Castillo, was first runnerup for do-it-yourself products “Masterpieces.” The other UP team, Team M.O.V.E., composed of Benedict Andrade, Juni Ty and Karen Crisostomo, was second runnerup for an anti-aging product, “Happyology,” that offers beauty and happiness.
Team Apex won a trip to Hong Kong and Macau, while Team M.O.V.E. will fly to Boracay.
The other finalists were Hensie Go, Cherry Albano and Joanna Young (Team Magisyan, ADMU); Ken Guiaco, Kim Co and Rachel Chua (Team Mastermind, DLSU); and Kady Wilson, Rizelle Malabanan and Jerome Zablan (Team Zen, DLSU).
Malabanan received a special award as best speaker.
“Year after year, the level of presentations gets better and better,” said Luc-Olivier Marquet, managing director of L’Oréal Philippines. “I’m proud to see so much creativity, in-depth analysis and good presentations.”
Marquet added that the Philippines “did very well” in the past international finals, placing on the top five.
Contest criteria were: analysis of the market (20 percent), innovativeness of proposed product (25 percent), impact of communication campaign (25 percent), strategic approach and coherence (15 percent) and presentation (15 percent).
The panel of judges was composed of Marquet, Tina Ampil (L’Oréal Philippines human resource general manager), Michael Muñoz (managing director of The Body Shop) and Fernando Villar (president of McCann Worldgroup).
With Brandstorm, L’Oréal aims to meet the best young talents from around the world and offer international students the chance to gain a highly stimulating, multicultural experience with the world’s leader in cosmetics.
Marquet said Brandstorm was “a big, big source of inspiration” in developing their new products. He said that, though no L’Oréal product was the exact representation of the students’ entries, the concept was the same.
With The Body Shop as the chosen brand for the 20th anniversary of Brandstorm, teams had to create new iconic and innovative products or product range combining L’Oréal’s expertise and brand equity in international markets with The Body Shop’s unique identity, culture and values.
Respecting the identity of the brand was an additional challenge for the students, who had to incorporate the ideas and practices of community fair trade in envisioning their production and executing their marketing campaigns.
More than 400 students, representing different teams from the three partner-universities submitted pre-case studies, which were screened by L’Oréal’s top business development and HR managers, with professors from the partner-schools.
The university finals reduced the number of competing teams from 150 to six. The jury, a mix of professionals in the fields of cosmetics, advertising and the academe, were Michelle Fernandez-Castillo (L’Oréal group recruitment and integration manager), Barbara Ramos (Garnier marketing manager) and Laura del Rosario-Dorotheo (McCann Erickson’s group account director).
The academe was represented by Marla Agustin (ADMU), Jose Luis Liongson (DLSU), Aries Estrella (DLSU) and Manuel Manuel III (UP).
