Students win global Chartered Institute of Marketing competition
A team of three Newcastle University Business School undergraduate students have been named ‘Marketers of the Future’ at this year’s Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) competition, "The Pitch".
25 April 2024
The competition, ran by CIM, aims to support the professional development of students studying a marketing or business degree. Students are given a real-world marketing challenge and are tasked with presenting their ideas to a panel of experts.
This year, teams from leading universities competed in undergraduate and postgraduate categories to create a marketing plan for EveryYouth, a charity which supports vulnerable young people to help them succeed in life. The aim of the challenge was to increase EveryYouth’s donor engagement. The student teams benefited from market research resources to develop their pitch, provided by leading marketing market intelligence agency, Mintel.
The winning team from Newcastle University Business School, made up of Lauren Parr, Jenny Vu and Mehek Hathiramani, said: “We are thrilled and honoured to be the winners of The Pitch 2024. During the past five months, we have seen how our ideas have developed, how our presentation skills have improved and how we have really come together as a team to produce a strong marketing plan for EveryYouth.
“Embarking on such an exciting challenge and receiving positive feedback from the judges during the live final was a real ‘pinch me’ moment for us. Finally, we are immensely grateful to The Chartered Institute of Marketing and EveryYouth, for the opportunity to showcase our skills in such an interesting and unique competition. We would also like to thank the Business School for supporting us every step of the way.”
Mehek added: “For me personally, partaking in The Pitch has intensified my enthusiasm for marketing and has demonstrated how creative problem solving can be used in many different contexts. I’m excited to see where this will take me in my future career.”
Fiona Thompson and Kirk Dodds, Senior Lecturers in Marketing at the School, supported the team throughout the process. They said: “we were delighted that our second year undergraduate marketing students were awarded this prestigious CIM award which also showcases the talents of our marketing students”.
As winners of the competition and recipients of the ‘Marketers of the Future’ award, the team are awarded a CIM professional membership, a ‘Specialist Award’ qualification from CIM Academy, and the opportunity to feature in a case study on the CIM website.
They will also benefit from a virtual session with Inken Khulmann-Rhinnow, Chief Marketing Officer at Hays, a multinational recruitment company that partnered with CIM for this year’s competition.