L’Oréal Brandstorm Competition Was Exhilarating…”
The L’Oréal Brandstorm Competition has been running for the last 14 years and South Africa has been participating since 2005. It is undoubtedly one of the most exhilarating career development simulations out there!
As a foretaste to being a brand manager for one of the world’s foremost companies, it certainly leaves nothing to be desired, and the important fact is that one does not necessarily have to be a marketing major, rather, you simply need to be passionate, innovative and strive for quality and excellence in everything that you do.
Let me give you an insight as to what this experience was like?
Day1
6.30am: Touchdown at Charles de Gaulle International Airport and the butterflies take flight in my stomach. Faheem, Mots and I spent all night thinking about, reciting and refining various aspects of our presentation, peaking our chaperone’s (Nina – Recruitment Manager L’Oréal SA) and other nearby passengers’ interest, then after a few ours in the air, in a closed environment, this repertoire became rather irritating, but nothing would stop these hungry, aspiring professionals from pitching the perfect presentation and a shot for the title!
9.00am:
Arrived at the 4-Star Hotel Mercure Paris Tour Eiffel Suffren – Just a stone’s throw away from the Eiffel Tower. We are scheduled to go to the L’Oréal Head Office at 2pm to do a dry-run and test the presentation CD on the projectors and microphones, so you’d think we’d kill the time sleeping off the flight and Finance exam the day before, freshening-up or go shopping and coffee on a street-corner café overlooking the River Seine…..no, no, Faheem proposes that we practice in the hotel gardens till we are 101% perfect!
2.30pm: We catch a cab to L’Oréal and drive through this beautiful city of and their grand old buildings like relics suspended in time with a story behind each one. WOW!! When we arrive, I feel the blood coursing through my veins and think, I could deliver my presentation right here in the foyer, I just want to get on with it, We meet and greet a few competitors from USA (Really competitive, like amazing race) and India (Very nice and sweet people). But team SA is here to win baby-yeah!
6.00pm: Happy Hour in the hotel and the champagne is flowing sweet and plentiful. It is an opportunity to suss-out our competition and make friends. We quickly make friends with Team Switzerland and UK. We make plans to go out that night, but we end up just climbing the Eiffel Tower (It’s beautiful by night, breathtaking!) and dinner nearby. We head back to the hotel at midnight to do one more practice run before sleeping.
View from the Eiffel Tower
Day2:
7.30am: Breakfast at the hotel and there’s an air of nervousness all round from all contestants. They’re all dressed-up in their presentation/battle regalia, ready to show-off to the Jury that they have the best Lancôme luxury bodycare product and strategy. We’re off to L’Oréal!
10.00am: After introductions, the teams go to their various venues. We were in the Europe2 group out of 4 zoned groups, consisting of: UK, France, Russia, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa.
Jury:
Didier Guillot – H.R. Director Latin America
Javier Labarta – M.D. Latin America
Guilhem Souche – Lancôme International Skincare Marketing Manager
Herbert Miller – Professor at University of Texas (Austin), U.S.A
Louis Sebastien OHL, Deputy Worldwide Account Director, Publicis
A draw is done to see which team goes first. South Africa is going 5th. The first teams, Hungary, Greece, Portugal and Russia are good, but in my opinion, not great, but at this point it is quite evident that UCT equips us well with presentation and analytical construct skills, but the rest is upto you, to give the package that X-Factor, especially when it comes to developing the communications campaign with Publicis to ensure the print adverts and display boards are aligned with your pitch’s ‘BIG iDEA’!
The presentation goes really well, and our apprentice themed skits work the crowd well, The L’Oréal staff are amazed with the quality coming out of S.A. given it’s only our second year in the game and that Lancôme does not enjoy a huge following by our consumers as it is on average R560.00 for their traditional lotions and body exfoliators (Caresse) and can be as expensive as R1500.00 for the ‘Absolue’ skincare range.
But if truth be told, the UK and French presentations took the cake, they were completely out of the box, if not re-molding the box to which the idea belongs! The French went on to win our group stage with an interesting gadget that uses Infrared to dispense the treatment and pods of different creams to infuse into the skin no-matter the problem, Cellulite, aging, dry-skin, tired skin etc..Truly innovative, but in S.A. definitely not affordable or feasible, but very fantastical.
1.00pm: We head back to the hotel, waiting in anticipation. In the evening at 6.00pm, we will go across the Seine to Musée de l’homme where the finals will be hosted.
6.00pm: We all shuffle into the building and in the room, it’s all white décor, floors and walls, there are Lancôme Beauty stands with make-up artists across the one wall where the girls can enjoy the very best in luxury cosmetic art from the best in the business. The hors d’oeuvres and champagne are making their rounds, and the room is filled with L’Oréal executives, managers and Brandstorm Alumni who are now L’Oréal staff. The atmosphere is great and the presentations are over, all the team members are calm and a little more extroverted, but still anxious, as at this point we didn’t know who in the 4 zones was going to present before the crowd.
7.30pm: The formal proceedings begin, the DJ is jamming and the veil that seemed like a wall earlier falls dramatically and reveals another volume of space where the main stage and rows of white clothed chairs await the teams, to find out who the winners will be!
Faheem looks optimistic
The announcement comes…..Team SA is almost off their seats thinking, we have got it! No…. not this year, France wins our group, Italy wins Europe 1, South Korea wins Asia and Chile wins the Americas and Austral region.
There’s excitement, surprise and disappointment all in one amazing swell!
The winning teams have to present in 10 minutes their presentations to all the crowd and to the Executive jury:
Executive Jury:
Mr. Jean-Paul Agon – CEO L’Oréal Grouo
Mr. Maurice Levy – CEO Publicis, Special Guest
Mr. Marc Menesguen – Executive Vice-President – Luxury Products, L’Oréal.
Mr. Geoff Skinsley – Executive Vice-President – Human Resources, L’Oréal
Ms. Odile Roujol – General Manager – Lancôme International, L’Oréal
The clear winners are France, and the Publicis Communications award is shared by France and Hungary. 2nd Place is South Korea and third is shared by Chile and Italy.
The real party begins and wine and champagne is flowing freely. The view out the windows is spectacular as you overlook the park onto the bright and sparkling Eiffel Tower in the twilight. We party and mingle with the Executives, with Managers, and competitors until about 1.00am/2.00am.
We walk from the museum to our hotel and the night is beautiful, although we didn’t win, we felt like we represented UCT and our country so well and during the night, having received feedback from our jury panel that our strategy was the best and most feasible of all presentations was very welcome as that was our objective, coming from an emerging market that behaves differently to the European and American markets. However our shortfall was simply on the print adverts, that did not fully promote the jeunesse of our product’s appeal.
Team DWANZi with CEO Jean-Paul Agon
Day3:
9.30am: The end of a wonderful competition. We are debriefed by the organizers at L’Oréal and told about how the entire organization runs, given the perspectives gained from the work we did as brand managers in the making!
- If this is a way to sell your organization to the best students in each country, this truly global company is way ahead of its time, in terms of claiming and retaining the best talent through an exciting practicum that sells their brands and the company culture to the graduate in a uniquely entrepreneurial way-
1.00pm: We enjoy farewell lunch at L’Oréal and exchange numbers and emails. We get official pictures and interviews done and get copies of the memorabilia presentation L’Oréal presented the night before about Lancôme and the competition itself, that featured us, the competitors. No wonder, those camera men followed us EVERYWHERE!
Team Dwanzi and Team UK
Dwanzi and Team Singapore
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