MSc Marketing students provide local business with brand building advice
Our MSc in Marketing students have been helping a local business build its brand as part of their studies.
The students, who undertook the exercise as part of their module on Strategic Brand Management, led by Professor Michael Beverland, were given a brief from local video production company, Sunflower Creative Agency.
The agency, which is nearly three years old, has focused on bespoke, commercial video production and social media for a range of clients including Crest Nicholson, The Holburne Museum and the Thermae Bath Spa. Sunflower also has a small film school for school children interested in becoming the next generation of media professionals.
Company founder Alastair Rzeznicki approached the School of Management for help with the strategic vision and positioning of the Sunflower brand with a view to increasing the agency’s commercial viability.
For the assignment, teams of students conducted research to identify Sunflower’s target audience, competitors and further its capabilities.
The teams gave their results in a series of lively presentations and the winning team were: Alexandra Bozova, Chun-Hung Chen, Andreas Foerster, Julien Oppelt, and Siddarth Sheth. This team suggested Sunflower focus on ‘love of craft, message authenticity, and client empathy’ as the three pillars of the Sunflower brand.
Commenting on the day, Alastair said:
“It’s great to get so much input into your brand development. Being so close to the business means one often overlooks some obvious and important things and how this is conveyed to new and existing customers through our branding. It’s not often we get the time to reflect on branding, so it's been great to work with the university so closely. Some of the students’ ideas and insights have sent us down some very new and interesting thought paths and already the business is seeing the benefit of this."
Sunflower has already started to implement some of the ideas that have arisen from the collaboration and have recently started work on an interesting new project with an organisation called Memorial Woodlands, situated on the outskirts of Bristol. The project came about as a result of the feedback from the students, which Sunflower then factored in to their bid proposal for the job.
Notes to Editors
Our taught postgraduate portfolio includes a range of highly-rated MSc degrees.
All of our MSc programmes are one year in length and aim to increase your employability by combining high quality academic learning with practical skills. Employers continually report that what makes Bath graduates so attractive is that they are ‘work ready’ and have the necessary skills to manage across a wide-range of business sectors. Our MSc in Management and MSc in Accounting and Finance are ranked amongst the global elite by the Financial Times.
For further information / press enquiries, contact:
Liz Alvey, Marketing Officer
School of Management
University of Bath
Claverton Down
Bath BA2 7AY
UK
Tel:+ 44 (0) 1225 386856
Email: pr@management.bath.ac.uk
General Notes For Editors:
The University of Bath School of Management has consistently achieved both top research and teaching ratings in the UK's Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) assessments. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the School was rated 5th in the UK for management research.
We are one of a select number of international business schools accredited by EQUIS, the European Foundation for Management Development's quality inspectorate and the Bath MBA has been accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) since 1976. The School is consistently ranked among the top UK business schools by The Times, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times and The Guardian.
The centrality of research to teaching is an essential feature of all our programmes. The School offers a full range of programmes from undergraduate to postgraduate up to PhD level and post-experience programmes including the world-ranked Bath MBA. The School also provides tailored executive development programmes for middle and senior management.
The School of Management has a faculty of around 90 teaching and research staff, including visiting academics, with a support team of around 70 managerial and administrative staff. Research income averages £2 million per annum. There are approximately 2,100 students in total comprising some 200 MBA students, 460 Master’s students, 210 full- and part-time research students, and over 1100 undergraduates following BSc degrees. The School also runs joint undergraduate programmes with Departments in the Faculties of Engineering and Design, Science and Humanities and Social Sciences.
