Student marketing team reaches final of Heritage Advertising Trust competition

A team of students from Strathclyde Business School's marketing department has reached the final of the Heritage Advertising Trust's student marketing competition.

The trio of students - Jude Dudley, Jennifer Doherty and Amy Frew - have been working on a brief provided by Ginsters, purveyors of traditional, savoury pastry products.

This is the first year for the competition, opening to students on January 26. Themed around ‘Bringing heritage into the future’, the competition is part of a pilot by the educational charity to engage students and HEIs across the UK.

Students are required to produce a top-line marketing strategy to build the Ginsters brand and increase sales, emphasising their brand heritage to capture today's consumers. Students are tasked with addressing brand awareness and setting out a promotional campaign to boost short term sales and long term brand equity.  The teams have to come up with a campaign to broaden the appeal of Ginsters, emphasising its status as a traditional company that uses locally sourced ingredients, is sustainable and supports local farmers.

The students will be competing with peers up and down the country and the competition gives them the chance to present the plan to senior industry experts.

Thomas McAlinden marketing lecturer, said, "This is a brand new competition this year and, as such, an exciting opportunity for our students to showcase their talent in marketing with regards to a real life product. Strathclyde's marketing department has had great success with our students in competitions such as these over the years where they are able to apply their learning on the course to a real life brief. With Strathclyde having an ethos of being 'the place of useful learming' and promoting such a way of learning on our programmes, this suits our students down to the ground.

"Whatever the end result, we know this will be a valuable and exciting opportunity for Jude, Jennifer and Amy and we wish them the very best in the competition."

The final takes place on April 22.