For the fourth straight year, a team of undergraduate students from York’s Schulich School of Business has won the L’Oréal Brandstorm 2007 national marketing competition and will represent Canada at the international final in Paris.
The team of Jennilee Dunwoody, Robert Fine and Suvit Yeung defeated some of Canada’s top marketing students to capture the national title. All three students are members of The Insider, Schulich’s student newspaper.
Another Schulich team, composed of Maria Juzwin, Julieta Neto and Cristina Italia, placed third overall. Participating teams presented their strategic marketing and communication campaigns for L’Oréal’s Redken for Men product line to a panel of executives and journalists.
Both Schulich teams benefited from the coaching and strategic insights of Ajay Sirsi, marketing professor, and Margaret Hastings (MBA ’89), a marketing lecturer.
The international final will take place June 14. The global marketing competition attracts student teams from over 100 schools in more than 30 countries.
In the past three years, the following Schulich teams have won the national championship and the right to represent Canada in the finals of the L’Oréal Brandstorm marketing competition:
- In 2004, a team of undergraduates in the International Bachelor of Business Administration program won the national title and then went on to win the international top prize in Paris. The team of Yasna Beheshti, Pooja Subramanian and Anna Waskow won the global competition with their innovative marketing plan for a new line of night-time skincare products. All three were subsequently hired by L’Oréal Canada.
- In 2005, Schulich teams once again came out on top in the L’Oréal Brandstorm competition, placing first and second in the Canadian finals. The team of Issack Derchansky, Michael Yang and Chi Zhang took first place, with second place going to the team of Yongjian Chen, Marco Iannucci and Nikolas Koiou.
- In 2006, the Schulich team of Laura Paradiso, Serena Marchesano and Milan Mladjenovic won the L’Oréal Brandstorm Canadian national title with their creative proposal for a new line of Lancôme Body Care products.
In 2005, a team of Schulich graduate students won first place in another L’Oréal student competition – the e-Strat Challenge, a national online marketing contest. The Master of Business Administration Program team of Allan Yu, Richard Kim and Rosana Yanez beat out 180 teams from across Canada to win the national e-strat championship.
"We’re proud and delighted that a Schulich team will once again represent Canada in the international finals," said Schulich Dean Dezsö J. Horváth. "The fact that Schulich teams have represented our country in each of the last four years speaks volumes about the excellence of our students and the quality of our marketing faculty."