Worcester Innovators Network

Today was hard. Unlike last year where we had to present a marketing campaign, this year we had to present it and execute it.

The company we had to do the campaign for was www.uuni.com. An alternate to facebook where you can win competions and all of the freatures of facebook which annoy people are removed. Our challenge was to get as many students as possible to join. Straight away we decided to contact as many students we knew as possible. Then we managed to get a stall on the main road of LSE. Narrowly beating the Hungarian team who obviously had the same idea. In Hindsight this was out first mistake. It wasn’t successful and didn’t show huge creative thinking. We knew this wouldn’t be enough to impress the judges. So some of us focused on internet marketing and getting the message to as many people as possible while i went to local businesses to claim free stuff to raffle off to all who joined on our stand. One of our defining factors. The use of free publicity on student radio and in a free paper is something that impressed our judge.

We saw many of the other teams throughout the day and again it became increasingly obvious that many people had the same ideas. Again at this point i regret not reacting to the competion. The simplist rule of marketing and it was ignored.

The presentation stage Our presentation went well considering. However every team we didn’t want to be against, we were against Cambridge and both Bath teams. While the other group had teams which we knew had done badly.

When the scores were announced we were placed at 7th out of 10. Only the results of the signup count on friday can help us now. Then we got to see the top 2 presentations. Cambridge and Birmingham. Birmgingham was first. A very similar campaign to ours but used free food. Obvious but effective. We couldn’t help but feel saddened that an idea as similar as ours could get someone to the final while we stayed in 7th place. Then Cambridge presented. Oh dear. Their youtube advertising campaign was the obvious winner offering professionalism and showing best understanding of the company. What they did on 6 hours was unbelieable and every team was in awe. I would love to hate them right now but they are just too nice. I can’t think of a nicer team to win.

So this has left us in 4th place overall. The close race could bring us back to third or possibly even 2nd if we have signed up the most people. Looking at the signups of home universities it isn’t looking too unlikely either. But many more people need to join under our name.

Lets hope that the next challenge brings prosperity and a happier team.