The Department of Marketing Management, in partnership with Appletiser, launched a project amongst the BCom Marketing Management second-year students during the second semester of 2015. Students were required to develop a marketing communication plan for Appletiser with the purpose of increasing brand awareness and sales of Appletiser beverages amongst UP students.

 

The project was launched with a big bang in July, when students were introduced to the product and had to participate in a “brand-the-box” exercise. Each student received a big white box containing Appletiser-branded paraphernalia, arts and craft tools and various symbols illustrating the indulgence, sophistication and celebration of the Appletiser brand. Equipped with paint, ribbon, glue and colouring pens, students had to illustrate on the white box how they perceive the brand after listening to the presentation given by Appletiser’s brand manager, Serena Ramiah. With boundless creativity, the students embraced the opportunity to work with real-life clients and face real-life challenges. After branding their boxes, students had to upload photos of their boxes onto Instagram under the hashtag, #appletiserbrandtheboxtuks.

 

 

Each student received a white box for the “brand-the-box” activity during the first lecture

 

The project consisted of three deliverables. The first deliverable required from students to conduct a situation analysis, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, and provide a clear description of their target market. As part of this deliverable, students had to conduct research amongst the students of the University of Pretoria relating to their socialising behaviour, consumption of, and attitude towards Appletiser, as well as a brief investigation into students’ social media behaviour. Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather the information and respondents who completed a questionnaire each received an Appletiser as an incentive for participating in the study.

Building on the information obtained through deliverable one, deliverable two included the marketing communication strategies with specific focus on experiential and digital marketing, as a means to reach the students at the University of Pretoria. Sharing some of their thoughts, expertise and inspiration, the second-year Marketing Management students were privileged to listen to two guest speakers addressing them on these two very relevant topics. Mr Kabelo Moshapalo from Digital Arts Network SA addressed the students on some of the latest trends and developments in digital marketing, while Mr David Boon from the Exp Agency shared research and case studies about how experiential marketing is breaking through the clutter to reach the target market in a unique and creative way. For the third and final deliverable, students had to incorporate an action plan and suggest some guidelines as to how Appletiser can measure the effectiveness of the proposed strategies.

 

As part of the final exam, the student groups had to present their marketing communication strategies to a panel of judges consisting of their lecturer, Mrs Laureane du Plessis, and a number of representatives from Appletiser, including Mrs Andrietta van Veijeren, Mrs Karen Visser and Mr Rory Greig

While this project started off with a bang, it ended off with an even bigger bang. Appletiser sponsored the prize-giving function that took place in November, during which they thanked and congratulated all the participating students for their hard work and effort in making this project such a success. The top three groups who performed the best throughout the semester were also announced and each of these members received a cash prize sponsored by Appletiser.

 

The top three groups of the UP-Appletiser project with their lecturer, Mrs Laureane du Plessis (back row, left), and Mrs Andrietta van Veijeren from Appletiser (back row, second from right)