Feature
Brand Battle at IUB Chittagong
Hussaina Joher and Tazrian Shainam Shahid
IUB SA Tel Brand Battle 2008 was the biggest event that happened in IUB Chittagong Campus this spring semester. The competition was organized by Business Students Society (BSS) of IUB. All the major private universities of Chittagong participated in the competition. The participating universities were the University of Science and Technology (USTC), Premier University, Southern University, University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS) and the host Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB). It was supposed to be an advertising competition but it became the battle of creativity and pride for all the participating universities.
The concept behind the competition was to test our theoretical knowledge in the practical field. Almost everything a student learns is worthless if he does not know how to implement it practically. Among all the courses, this is especially true for advertising, where its not only about knowing what is written in the books but how you can transform the knowledge into an 'out of the box' creative strategy. The idea for Brand Battle in short was that the participating teams would have to design a print ad for a brand within a limited period of time. Sounds simple? Well take it from a first hand experience, it was not!!
The team from IUBC consisted of Hussaina Joher together with Salman Zahir, Mushfiq Khalid Hassan and Tazrian Shainam Shahid. My duty was to put the ideas on paper which everyone came up with. The creative department was headed by Mushfiq and Salman. They were going to give the ideas and Tazrian was going to be the idea screener and presenter.
BSS executives, with full support and co-operation from faculty members Sabrina and Tahlil Azim did the overall coordination of the event. A special note of thanks to our advertising course instructor, Mr Javed Hossain who helped to boost confidence into us.
The day of the competition 28th April 2008 dawned bright and hot. The product category or brand on which the ads had to be developed was kept confidential till the last moment. The judges of the competition were Mr Gousul Alam Shaon, General Manager, Creative & Strategy, Grey Advertising Bangladesh Ltd, Mr. Razeeb Hasan Chowdhury CCO, COGITO, Marketing Solutions and Mr. Biswajit Biswas, Associate Editor, Daily Prothom Alo, Chittagong Bureau.
The brand for the competition was SA Tel's upcoming RUIM package targeted for the corporate segment and the challenge for all the teams was to develop a print ad for it within two and a half hours.
After a nerve wrecking 2 and a half hours all the chart papers were taken from the teams. And after a scrumptious lunch at the Chittagong Institute (courtesy BSS and SA Tel), all the teams had to present the concept behind their ads and answer the questions asked by the judges.
After the presentations were done, Mr. Razeeb Hasan Chowdhury and Mr. Gousul Alam Shaon conducted a workshop where all the participants and interested BSS members joined in. The workshop was basically a presentation of some of their own work, which has caused massive changes in the advertising industry of the country.
After the workshop, the presentation ceremony commenced which was presided over by the Vice Chancellor of IUB Prof Bazlul Mobin Chowdhury, Coordinator of IUB Chittagong campus, Prof. Nuruzzaman, Director in Charge, School of Business Dr. Nadim Jahangir and Mr. Sajjad Hossain, CEO SA Tel together with the judges.
Celebrations started in the hall when IUB Chittagong was declared the proud winners of the competition and the team members were presented with crystal trophies and two SA Tel Phones.
Brand Battle was indeed a grand experience for everyone. It was a wonderful platform for the students of the marketing departments to show their creativity and calibre and it makes us immensely proud to have been a part of the winning team.
( The writers are students of IUB Chittagong Campus)
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