Health is wealth: BCom Marketing honours students drive awareness for consumer health and wellness

Posted on November 28, 2022

For this year’s final exam challenge for the Strategic Marketing (SBB781) module, the students got the opportunity to work with Nativa, a leader in the consumer health and wellness industry. The company’ purpose is enriching lives by delivering trusted health solutions that improve wellness and quality of life. Some of their brands include Turbovite, Linctagon, Black Forest Herbal Tea, JointEze and Mom2B.

The students had to work on one of two Nativa brands, namely JointEze and Mom2B. The JointEze range includes capsules, patches, oils, and gels that reduces joint pain and inflammation, helps protect cartilage, speeds up recovery, reduces discomfort from exercise and supports muscle function; while Mom2B are pregnancy shakes that supply nutrients and essential vitamins and minerals that supports mothers and their babies before and during pregnancy, and while breastfeeding.

On 26 October 2022, students received their exam brief and were introduced to the Nativa team, who gave them an overview of each respective brand. Teams were randomly assigned to work on either JointEze or Mom2B and each student received a goodie hamper on the evening to kickstart the project.

                               Marketing Management honours class receiving JointEze and Mom2B goodie bags

The brief to the students this year was to develop a digital campaign to drive brand equity and awareness and to increase sales of JointEze or Mom2B, respectively. As part of the exam challenge, the student teams were required to conduct a competitor analysis, SWOT analysis, profile the target market and include a word-of-mouth (WOM)/social media influencer element to their campaigns. 

Two weeks before the exam presentations, each team was given an opportunity to have a five-minute soundboard session with the client via Zoom, in which they could pitch their preliminary campaign ideas, ask questions, and receive guidance and feedback as input to their final exam presentations.

The final exam presentations took place on  campus, on 23 November 2022, to a panel comprising of the Nativa team - Ronel Vorster (Head: Nutrition Division), Nana Lloyd (Marketing Manager), Odette Vass (Senior Brand Manager for JointEze), Nicoli Wiese (Senior Brand Manager for Mom2B) and Lunga Metsing (Brand Assistant for Mom2B), as well as an external moderator, Dr Nicole Cunningham, and two internal examiners, Dr Michelle van der Merwe and Dr Jade Verbeek (the module lecturer).

Exam panel (from left to right): Dr Nicole Cunningham, Ms Lunga Metsing, Ms Nicoli Wiese, Ms Odette Vass, Ms Nana Lloyd, Ms Ronel Vorster, and Dr Jade Verbeek.

Despite a challenging exam brief, the students delivered exceptional work and gained so much value and understanding of brand awareness through a digital marketing campaign. The Nativa team commended the students for their hard work, their inventive ideas, and their well-grounded strategic campaigns. In the end, there were three teams that were recognised for their campaign ideas, and each team member received a cash prize sponsored by Nativa. These top three teams were: Joint Creatives (first place), Soccer Moms (second place) and Eze Breezy (third place).

                                                                                  Winning team: Joint Creatives
                                                               (from left to right): Jenna Moll, Mieke Pienaar, and Duané Kitching.

                                                                                           Second team: Soccer Moms
                                                                 (from left to right): Elizma van Zyl, Christine Kennedy, Chloë White, and Melissa Pretorius.

                                                                                          Third team: Eze Breezy
                                                                (from left to right): Deonardo Canha, Jessica Barnsley, and Lara Jacobs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Author Department of Marketing Management

Copyright © University of Pretoria 2024. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 Corona Virus South African Resource Portal

To contact the University during the COVID-19 lockdown, please send an email to [email protected]

FAQ's Email Us Virtual Campus Share Cookie Preferences