A novel store immersion introduced UP Marketing Management students to Italtile, in this third consecutive year of Italtile’s successful partnership with the University of Pretoria. The collaboration is designed to round out the studies of Marketing Management honours students with a meaningful, immersive, year-long adventure in sales.
To launch the 2020 Study Programme, Italtile Marketing Manager and Programme Leader Nicole Russell and her supporting team created an exciting store immersion – The Italtile Amazing Race – for this year’s honours students.
The innovative introduction to sales was Russell’s brainchild. “Retail is a marathon, and in sales, only the fittest get to the finish line. Our Amazing Race, while fun, was in reality a sales fitness test for the students,” she said. The idea behind it? “We wanted students to get to grips with an Italtile floorplan, stock strategies, items on promotion, the fine details of layout, pricing, etc, but under duress, in real time, with a speed challenge!”
Forty-five students gathered at the Italtile Menlyn Pretoria showroom on 4 March. Divided into teams of five, their task was to unpack nine clues, one by one, that took them to every corner of the showroom in search of correct answers. It was a noisy, festive, at times frustrating, exhausting, but overall hilarious couple of hours; at the end, after all 45 students correctly uncovered and discovered the 10 answers, they were fully versed in the Italtile space and product range. The first team across the finish line won a R 2 500 meal voucher for the Artisan Coffee Restaurant – a favourite student hangout on the UP campus.
After the event, Nicole, together with Marketing lecturer Danita van Heerden, introduced the students to Italtile’s history and marketing strategy, and revealed their first briefs: the presentation of three marketing strategies, covering three of Italtile’s merchandising categories, namely sanware, bathroom accessories and tiles. The students will work in groups to fine-tune their marketing strategies and present to the Italtile marketing panel.
The race might be over, but the hard yards have just begun!
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