Specialist Public Relations module leader Robert Minton-Taylor writes:
A team of Sports Marketing and PR students has won the prize for a competitive pitch presented to Adam Riley, marketing manager, IKEA Leeds.
The group members were Sam Brandon, Eloise Brownless, Elliot Chang, Charlotte Kew, Matthew Proudman and Joe Taylor.
The winning pitch was a near faultless presentation delivered with great aplomb. What especially impressed Adam Riley was the team’s target audience segmentation developed from in-depth primary and secondary research.
The ideas presented were novel and praiseworthy. The tray mats concept was brilliant in its execution and the Quick Response code a masterstroke. (QR codes, first used in the automotive industry, are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phones i.e. mobile tagging).
Whilst the poster was not the most visually appealing that we saw, the team presented a variety of them to look like the IKEA Family card. The key messages delivered in the posters were spot on.
The team’s video segment was very professionally made and it made the point perfectly. Altogether, it was a cohesive, well-rehearsed, consummately delivered and stylish presentation.
The runners-up (Lloyd Davies, Joe Mirtaheri, Stuart Payling, Richard Wear and Callum White) presented a very different response to the brief. Theirs was the only presentation to solely concentrate on internal communications and they were able to articulate the reasons why they had selected this focus for pitch, supported by solid primary and secondary research.
The team also ensured that their poster designs fitted the requirements of the company’s ‘Trademarks’ and ‘Intellectual Property Rights’ documents. They had taken the initiative to ask for these from the company as part of their research.
The winners and runners-up will be offered a two week secondment within the marketing team at IKEA Leeds.
