At Lahti University of Applied of Applied
Sciences in the Faculty of Business all students are encouraged to become
international either by taking part in an international marketing week or by
studying abroad as an exchange student. Studying abroad improves your language
skills and helps to make friends from all over the world. It also gives you the
possibility to practice your language skills in the real world instead of
normal lessons. Especially English skills are really important in the business
life nowadays.
We
participated in the international marketing week at HELMo University College in
Liege, Belgium, from 16th to 19th March. The week was
organized by Businet, a global business education network of institutes of
higher education around the world. Lahti University of Applied Sciences is also
part of the Businet network.
During the
Fashion Design week, we were divided into six groups of four or five people. We
were then assigned a task to create a marketing plan for a recently graduated
HELMo Mode student. There were two designers: Charlotte Zink (in the picture)
and Robin Huberty. They chose the groups who would market them based on “Our
thoughts of fashion” mood boards that we created in the
groups.
Even though
we spent three days in Belgium, we only had around five hours to create our
marketing plans for the designers. Our program for the week also included
lectures and visits to local museum and to HELMo Mode fashion school. At the
end of the last day, we presented our plans to a jury which included teachers
from HELMo, marketing experts and of course the two fashion designers. The jury
then chose the winning marketing plan, and they also awarded the team with the
most innovative ideas.
Lack of
time wasn’t the only obstacle on the way to creating a victorious marketing
plan. As newly graduated designers, our clients didn’t have a huge budget to
spend, so we needed to come up with ideas that were effective but cheap to
execute. Many teams used their own contacts and planned to use HELMo’s students
for their marketing projects. Many teams also considered that social media is
one of the most important marketing channels. For example, some groups planned
to do a Facebook page, to open a Twitter account and to create a website.
Working
with a foreign designer and in an international group of students was
challenging but rewarding. The working language in the project was English even
though the designers spoke French as their mother tongue, as did the majority
of the students. There were of course some language barriers, but all the
students and teachers were very helpful in translating English to French, and
eventually everybody understood each other.
The
designers received three different ways to develop the marketing of their
products. Every group had various visions in their marketing plans, and the
designers can therefore benefit from these plans in the future. They can also
adapt the different ideas from each plan. In general, this kind of marketing
week is a good way for designers to get new ideas. The students worked a lot
with their marketing plans, and all this was free for the designers.
The
marketing week in Liege was a great experience. We learned lots of new things
about marketing related to fashion design and about studying in Belgium. Most
of us had never been to Belgium, so we also learned a little bit about Belgian culture. We also got some new international friends,
and studying abroad was a nice change from our business studies at home in
Finland.
Text: Emma
Laaksonen and Heta Lehtinen
Photos: Emma
Laaksonen
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