For the third successive year, a team of Strathclyde Marketing students have won a nationwide competition designed to recognise and reward the marketing talent of the future.
Now in its eighth year, CIM The Pitch sees students from leading universities compete to respond to a live client brief in a bid to win the title of 'Marketer of the Future'.
Each year undergraduate marketing and business students in their second or third year of university are tasked with a real-life marketing challenge. This year’s Challenge was set by one of Europe’s leading food retailers, Lidl, providing students the opportunity in teams of two or three to apply their learning from their degrees. The top ten teams had the opportunity to pitch their ideas and demonstrate their ability in front of true business professionals on February 28.
Thomas Cooper and Adam Dickson are the two students who this year won the award, making it the triple for Strathclyde Business School.
Unfortunately, the team didn't get to attend the conference due to the Covid-19 situation - instead, Thomas and Adam learned of their win via a Zoom call. Thomas said, "While this wasn't what we expected, we were glad to find out the results sooner rather than later!"
He added, "We were thrilled at the news. It's fantastic to hear that all of the hard work has paid off. The Pitch has provided an excellent opportunity to put into practice everything we have learnt at Strathclyde so far, in order to develop a fully-integrated marketing plan for a global supermarket brand. It was a privilege to represent the university and I'm delighted that we were able to secure the hat-trick."
Adam said, "With the future graduate landscape looking uncertain, we are extremely happy to have won the competition. We believe that the award will help us stand out amongst other applicants for graduate jobs. We look forward to starting our careers in marketing and are again so happy to have won the competition. It was a well needed piece of good news given the circumstances!"
Marketing lecturer and supervisor of the team Thomas McAlinden said, "I am absolutely ecstatic that Thomas Cooper and Adam Dickson have been awarded first place in the annual student marketing competition – CIM The Pitch and being recognised as the ‘Marketers of the Future’. This is the THIRD year in a row that students from the University of Strathclyde have won this competition with students applying what they have learned in a real life context truly demonstrating that the University of Strathclyde really is the ‘place of useful learning’.”