Blugrapes challenges students in social media marketing

With the aim to facilitate professional exposure for marketing innovators, the challenge requires students to work in groups of three to conceptualise, propose and present a three-month long social media campaign for Kao’s Liese DIY hair colour range within a budget of US$12,000.

The key focus of the campaign is the Liese Bubble Hair Color series. The call for proposals closed on 12 September, while the semi-final results were announced today.

Teams qualifying for the semi-finals will be required to produce a two-minute video of their campaign that will be opened to the public for voting. The winning team will walk away with close to US$1000 in cash, and its proposal will be adopted by Kao.

Milagros Rivera, head of the Department of Communications and New Media, noted that classroom education should be complimented by experiential learning, while the students will greatly benefit from this experience.

Chong Hua Min, brand manager of Liese at Kao (Singapore) Private Limited, said, “We are excited to be part of this challenge as it’s a first of its kind. We are also in anticipation of the campaign ideas, especially with the students’ new media communications training in school.”

Ryan Lim, business director of Blugrapes, meanwhile said tertiary institutions like the National University of Singapore’s Communications and New Media Department are increasingly looking to partner with industry practitioners to provide students with real opportunities to put theory into actual practice, as social media emerges as a key marketing component for most consumer brands.

“As social media marketing is an emerging industry, our objective for 'BLUprint' was to give students a professional and pedagogical exposure through the opportunity of developing a social media marketing campaign with a well-known consumer brand,” he added.