Curtin Malaysia students demonstrate creative marketing strategies and skills in Marketing Idol competition

Miri – 12 November 2019 – The ‘Discovering Marketing’ unit team under the Department of Marketing of the Faculty of Business of Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) recently collaborated with local gelato café Scoopy’s Gelateria to organise a ‘Marketing Idol’ competition for students taking the unit in the current semester.

Participation in the competition was part of the students’ group assignment for the first-year core unit. As the unit incorporates the concept of Work Integrated Learning (WiL) to expose students to real industry experience and help develop their critical thinking skills in analysing marketing issues, the competition required them to devise new products and marketing strategies for Scoopy’s Gelateria.

Nine teams under the supervision of lecturers Dr. Shamsul Kamariah Abdullah, Dr. Goi Chai Lee and Dr. Fayrene Chieng made it to the finals of the competition.

Dr. Shamsul, who is the unit team leader, said her team was given the opportunity this semester to collaborate with a local client by Unit Coordinator Siobhan Hatton-Jones at Curtin’s main campus in Perth to encourage student interaction and engagement with a local organisation, and build the potential to drive change closer to home.

Before commencing their projects, the students did research on the operations of Scoopy’s Gelateria. They performed SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analyses before designing appropriate marketing strategies based on the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) concept.

Two judges from Scoopy’s Gelateria were invited to the finals to evaluate the students’ work and select the top three teams based on their product concepts and marketing strategies.

The team comprising Russel Ng, Selwyn Quah, Teng Yong Sin, Jacqueline Chiew and Joylyn Hong emerged champion for their winning strategy around their ‘Rose Gelato’.

In second place was the team comprising Tee Wei Song, Jessie Lau Jia Lin, Alexandra Jacklya Bte Dakius and Ronald Chong who proposed selling ‘Sandwich Cookies’, while the team consisting of Andrew Ng, Tatiana Wong, Lee Hip Foung, Nurul Umyira Zakhir Khan, Wong Wen Ni and Tu Jia Hui walked away with the third prize for their proposal to introduce ‘La Dolce Macarons’.

The Marketing Idol Competition will continue in the next semester in early 2020. Any businesses, especially those in Miri, that are interested to collaborate with the Faculty of Business on this event can contact Dr. Shamsul at +6 085-630 100 for details.

One of the teams showcasing their work.

A team facing the judges.

The winning team showing off their ‘Rose Gelato’

This team’s ‘Sandwich Cookies’ clinched them a second-place win.

Third-placed team proudly displaying their ‘La Dolce Macarons’ and marketing concept.

All the finalists, judges and lecturers posing for a group photo.