Bordeaux-based Independent Institute of Education (IIE)-Vega’s final-year students will participate in the annual Brand Challenge, designed to prepare the next generation of industry leaders for the reality of the working world.
The challenge will also equip them with the critical and creative thinking skills they need to boost their employability.
During the challenge, the students from all the IIE-Vega campuses, distance, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, collaborate nationally in virtual, transdisciplinary agencies to develop novel, fully fledged, and meaningful brand-building solutions to real-world challenges briefed by brands.
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This provides students with real-time and real-world exposure to develop their minds and skill sets to conduct research, identify meaningful strategic direction, devise innovative and purposeful brand-building plans, and to produce creative executions.
Brand Challenge project manager Amalia van Schalkwyk explained that to simulate an agency setting, three groups of seven to eight transdisciplinary students (i.e brand, business, and design) are allocated to each participating brand.
“These student agencies are charged with creating meaningful innovative brand-building solutions for brands, in exchange for a contribution towards the IIE-Vega Grant Fund. Brands from diverse sectors and industries, facing a particular brand challenge, are invited to participate, and their contributions may range from R20 000 for a small company, to R45 000 for a medium-sized company, to R90 000 for a large, listed company.”
The Grant Fund contributes towards a deserving student studying at the school. The student agencies are guided through the three-week strategic and creative development process by panels of lecturers with relevant industry experience.
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Van Schalkwyk added that for 25 years and counting, students have benefitted from the IIE-Vega Brand Challenge, and brands have gained a set of fresh and innovative solutions to their brand challenges.
“To have journeyed with the students in creating a marketing strategy for The Solar Marketplace during the 2023 Brand Challenge was an extraordinary experience. We learnt so much from each of the groups throughout the Brand Challenge.”
The 2024 IIE-Vega Brand Challenge will run from September 25 to October 18. Brands are invited to contact national IIE-Vega Brand Challenge project manager Amalia van Schalkwyk at amvschalkwyk@vegaschool.com.
