Special Project L'Oreal Brandstorm

Objectives

The L’Oréal Brandstorm challenge is an international contest where students face a real marketing problem and find a solution for a brand in the L’Oréal portfolio.
Thousands of students from hundreds of universities in 63 different countries run for the international finals that take place in Paris, in June. You will get the chance to represent NOVA at the international finals. The challenge runs first at a national level (3-stage selection). The best team will go to the international finals in Paris (June 23rd and June 24th). This is a highly competitive, time-sensitive, work-intensive practical course for students with a hands-on attitude, who are extremely motivated to conduct rigorous high-quality consumer/market research, and to apply consumer insights in a real breakthrough innovation. This syllabus outlines the steps and recommended workload/effort to succeed in the challenge. Students participating in this course must demonstrate strong drive, independence, and excellent analytical and communication skills. The final grade depends on the team performance in the challenge.

General characterization

Code

2543

Credits

3,5

Responsible teacher

Irene Consiglio

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites

Graduate Students eligible to enrol should not have yet acquired considerable professional experience (except for internships, apprenticeships, summer job experiences and auto- entrepreneurs students).

Students who have already participated in the competition and reached the international finals cannot participate.

Students must be fully committed to the challenge and be in Portugal in the second semester, starting from January.

Bibliography

Resources

Reading materials (if any) will be posted on Moodle.

Students are expected to consult Moodle regularly, as it will be the primary means for communicating important deadlines and details about the challenge, and any change in schedule or content that might be necessary (depending on updated L’Oréal guidelines).

Teaching method

Learning by doing. Students need to develop their project independently. The instructor will work closely with the teams and provide feedback on students’ work, organized in a series of recommended assignments and meetings.

Evaluation method

The final grade depends on the team’s final performance in the challenge (100%). All team meetings with the instructor and intermediate assignments are optional. Teams who choose option C in phase 2 or 3, and students who reach the national finals, MUST submit the following compulsory final work.

Subject matter

  • 1. Phase 1: Enrolment and registration of teams:

    Communicate your team to the instructor (irene.consiglio@novasbe.pt).

    Students are responsible for teaming up—The earlier the better. The instructor can facilitate the process by suggesting teams, but students are responsible for finding their own teammates.

    Participation is not guaranteed without a team. After registering individually on L’Oréal’s platform, look for teammates and form teams (3 students per team). Communicate your team to your instructor as soon as possible and register your team for the challenge. Teams approved in December will have priority over teams approved in January in terms of number of guaranteed coaching sessions with the instructor. The number of coaching sessions will be determined based on the total number of teams and thus this will be announced in January.

    In this preliminary phase students need to follow the direct instructions received by L’Oréal through the Brandstorm platform.

  • 2. Phase 2: Preliminary Market Research and idea definition (Jan/Feb):

    Start of coaching sessions with instructor.

    Each team starts working on the challenge;

    Market research and idea generation;

    Each team defines the market research plan (if needed) and implements it.

    Definition of the product/service concept

    3. Phase 3: Best Pitch – Selection of teams who will participate in the National Finals:

    Definition of the campaign insight and briefing;

    Teams prepare an idea pitch (3 slides): First national selection;

    Even if not selected:

    Development of the creative idea;

  • 4. Phase 4: National Finals:

    Preparation of the Presentation for the national finals ;

    National Finals: Second national selection;

  • 5. Phase 6: International Finals (May 2018):

    A specific timeline will be provided by L’Oréal.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: