Success of IFTM teams in the Greater Bay Area Branding Design Competition serves as testament to the Institute’s commitment to providing practical, industry-relevant education
Two teams of IFTM students have showcased their talent at the 2023 Greater Bay Area Branding Design Competition, with one team clinching a silver award in the overall contest, while the other secured the Best Intangible Heritage Popularity Award. The contest was themed around Macao’s intangible heritage.
The competition was organised by the Macao International Brand Enterprise Commercial Association and supported by the city’s Economic and Technological Development Bureau. The awards ceremony took place in October.
A total of 12 teams drawn from 5 local higher education institutions took part in the competition, and the contest activities were spread over 6 months. Participants were tasked with proposing packaging designs for specific products, implementing production of the packaging, then using it to sell products to the general public. For the competition, each team was tied to a particular local company, working with that firm and its products.
Yelena Lu Ruo Tong, a member of the IFTM team that won a silver award, emphasises the importance of practical business-related skills in order to achieve success in the competition. Notably, IFTM was the sole participating higher education institution not to have in its curriculum a design or visual arts academic programme.
“In the beginning, that was a concern,” Yelena notes. “But as we moved on, we found out that it was more important to know how to sell our products, rather than only how to produce beautiful packages.”
Yelena, a Year 4 student in the Institute’s Tourism Business Management Bachelor’s Degree Programme, explains her team partnered with a local food product company, helping to promote its wares. She highlights the valuable marketing analysis knowledge gained by team members from their studies at IFTM. She says that greatly contributed to their success in the competition.
Fellow team member Quella Lio Cheok Io acknowledges the contest as an opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge gained at the Institute in a real-world context. Quella, who graduated last summer from IFTM’s Tourism Retail and Marketing Management Bachelor’s Degree Programme – to be rebranded in the upcoming academic year as the Marketing and Brand Management programme – stresses the significance of activities such as budget planning and SWOT analysis for a good performance in the Greater Bay Area Branding Design Competition. SWOT analysis refers to a strategic planning tool used to identify and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a project or business venture.
Meanwhile, the other IFTM student team, partnering with a skincare product company, successfully promoted a specific type of cosmetics, and secured the Best Intangible Heritage Popularity Award.
Brenda Fu Hei Tong, a Tourism Business Management Year 3 student, mentions the importance of effective communication skills for the competition, especially to enable each team to understand its partner company’s brand image and positioning. Her team incorporated a Portuguese-style type of tile, known as ‘azulejo’, into the branding of a Chinese-style skincare product, creating a unique East-West fusion that eventually resonated with the market.
Fellow team member Selina Chow Ieng Ieng, a Year 2 student in the Tourism Retail and Marketing Management programme, expresses gratitude for the fact the competition gave participants a platform to apply classroom knowledge. She cites the IFTM Merchandise Management course as directly contributing to her team’s success.
“We chose a seasonal product for the competition,” she explains. “During that period, I was enrolled on the Merchandise Management course, which specifically addressed the handling of seasonal and limited-supply products, along with various sales strategies that we could apply,” Selina details.
“Competitions like this contribute to our studies. They can offer a platform for us to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios or to complement what we learn in the classroom.”
