Consumer Psychology Students Win National Marketing Competition

A team of three students from the School of Psychology impressed a panel of Wales’ leading marketers with a winning business proposal at 'The Pitch', a challenge set by The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and Big Ideas Wales. The team was the only one from a non business/marketing department and beat marketing students from across Wales, who presented their ideas for Big Ideas Wales, a Welsh Government-led campaign that aims to inspire young people to start their own businesses.The students were given a detailed brief and asked to consider budgets, messaging and marketing tools in their presentations, to give them an understanding of a real-life business scenario.

The Bangor postgraduate Consumer Psychology students, Chris Shenton, 25, Federica Gherardi, 23, Lucas Michaut, 22 competed under the team name Trifecta Marketing Solutions. They presented their winning campaign, ‘Do it your way’ to the judges, looking at the four key entrepreneur personality traits: need for achievement; internal locus of Control; need for autonomy and risk-taker. Their chosen key messages were: Risk – sometimes, you have to take a chance; Autonomy – I make my own choices; Control –  I take the bull by the horns; Achievement –  I’m always the front runner. The suggested “Do it your way” interactive web site linked to Facebook included user-generated video as well as a forum for advice and support from peers. Alongside their creative excellence they ensured the entire campaign was fully costed with SMART targets.

Student Federica Gherardi, 23, said: “I’m delighted that the judges were impressed with our idea and winning the competition will certainly be a welcomed addition to my CV! The Pitch was a great opportunity to put the skills we’ve learned to the test and hopefully it’ll be a stepping stone to getting a job in the marketing industry.” The students felt that the in depth understanding of Consumer Psychology theory and practice they had developed during their MSc Consumer Psychology degree gave them an edge over students solely able to draw on business or marketing backgrounds.

The judges commented that they were particularly impressed with the teams deep psychological understanding and segmentation along with their general presentational abilities. Richard Houdmont, Director for Wales of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, said “Trifecta Marketing Solutions demonstrated creative flair, strategic thinking and financial expertise, and had the opportunity to showcase these skills to some of the industry’s biggest players.”

James Intriligator, the team's mentor and Senior Lecturer in Consumer Psychology at Bangor, said: "I'm delighted that the students from Bangor did so well against very difficult competition from other universities. Employability is a particular focus of the University and skills such as those gained in taking part in this event will be of great benefit to the students when they apply for jobs after leaving University."

There is now an extended film of the evening’s proceedings available on youtube and there are also photo's of the event on Flickr.

Publication date: 5 March 2012