Member Article

Newcastle Business School students crowned national competition winners

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University students have won first and second place in a national competition.

Two teams from Newcastle Business School beat more than 125 other entrants to gain the final two places in this year’s Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) National Student Competition. All of the students are about to graduate from the BA (Hons) Marketing Management programme.

Team Living the i-life, comprised of students Thu Hang Le, Kelsey McDonald, Kirsty Nevison, Catherine Nolan and Laura Whiting, supervised by lecturer Karen Wharton, took the gold prize for their “rigorously planned” response to a real marketing brief from sponsors BMW to launch the car giant’s first electric vehicle under sub-brand BMWi.

The team’s direct and digital marketing plan for the electric car launch impressed the judges, who praised their “well-thought argument from start to finish, good analysis of the audience and clear communications strategy to engage and convert.”

Runners up were fellow Northumbria University students, Team Fusion, made up of supervising tutor Vic Yoganathan and students Abdullah Ahmed, Joshua Bennet, Yu Fu, Wing Yan Kwok and Taslima Miah.

The result represents the fifth time that NBS has produced the winning team in the competition which is open to all full time UK marketing and business degree students.

The winning team won £1,500 with the winning supervisor receiving funding to attend the US Direct Marketing Association’s Conference and Exhibition later this year. The event also incorporates the US Direct Marketing Educational Foundation event with the latest US and international research in direct and digital marketing.

Team Fusion’s second prize was worth £800.

Lecturer Karen Wharton said: “The Business School’s continued success in the IDM awards is testament to the hard work of our students who have applied their direct and digital marketing skills to a real life business challenge demonstrating great creativity and business acumen.

“It is very rewarding to see our students so well equipped to meet the demands of the working environment.”

Dr David Hart, Programme Director for Undergraduate Specialist Programmes and the students’ module tutor added: “I am tremendously proud of our students for achieving first and second place in this competition. We have a successful track record in the IDM competition over the past number of years and to clinch the top two spots again is fantastic.

“Our students worked exceptionally hard with their supervisors to develop truly professional campaign ideas for BMW and this success signifies the outstanding talent that we have here at Newcastle Business School.”

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This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Newcastle Business School Marketing .