Aiming to be 'pitch' perfect

For the third year in a row Strathclyde Business School students have got through as finalists to the nationwide marketing competition The Pitch. Here Thomas Cooper outlines how he and teammate Adam have found the experience.

My team mate Adam Dickson and I are delighted to have been chosen as finalists for The Pitch 2020. It seems surreal that in under a month we will be down south, presenting our ideas to a panel of industry experts – but we are really looking forward to it. The Pitch is a UK-wide marketing competition run by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and provides students with the chance to work with global brands in developing a creative, on-brand solution to a marketing brief.

For the competition this year, we worked closely with Lidl supermarkets to prepare an integrated marketing campaign which served two purposes. First of all, we had to inform consumers about the efforts Lidl has made to reduce the amount of plastic used in packaging their own-brand products. Secondly, we were required to educate Lidl’s customers on how they could reduce their own plastic waste. 

The Pitch has been such an amazing competition to be a part of and we can’t recommend it highly enough to future Strathclyde students. It’s a real CV booster and a fantastic way to apply everything you have learnt in class.

We know what it’s like being told about these opportunities and thinking your chances of success would be far too slim to consider getting involved. However, this is most definitely not the case! It really is simply the case of asking yourself, are you willing to invest your life and soul into the project? And if answered ‘yes’ – then the odds are strongly in your favour.

We also understand that it can be a worry - the idea of investing a large proportion of your life into studying a subject which you aren’t always sure you’ll excel in beyond the walls of the lecture hall. But it’s opportunities like The Pitch promoted by the university, that allow us to apply what we’ve learnt in class, in real-life industry situations. It is such a reassuring feeling to be told by industry professionals that essentially you’re not being daft in pursuing a marketing career! 

There’s a lot of pressure on our shoulders this year, especially since Strathclyde students have won the competition for two years on the trot - but we have already begun our preparation for the final and will do everything it takes to bring home the hat-trick!

The next stage of the competition is the live pitching final which takes place on February 28.

About Thomas Cooper

Thomas Cooper is an undergraduate student studying marketing at Strathclyde Business School.