Aspiring young marketers will have a unique opportunity to showcase their creative skills, along with their technical capabilities and business acumen, in Classified Post’s Young Marketer of Tomorrow contest, which will be held at today’s Career Forum. Organised by Classified Post in association with Sun Life Financial, the Young Marketer of Tomorrow competition brings together teams of students from different academic backgrounds from universities from across Hong Kong.
More than 100 teams registered for the contest, which is divided into two groups. Each group will be assigned a specific brief that covers one of two topics – social enterprise or financial planning – with both topics incorporating the theme of entrepreneurship. With the goal of attracting funding, teams in the social enterprise group are tasked with developing an innovative marketing plan that addresses economic, environmental or health challenges that have a positive impact on society. The group tasked with developing a financial plan is required to come up with a marketing strategy that focuses on effective ways to prepare financially for later in life.
Competing teams in both groups will be expected to present a marketing plan that showcases their campaign concept, their business case, and their feasibility study, as well as their budget, legal and outcome goals. Each team’s plan will be assessed on seven different factors, including its operational and technological viability, the effectiveness and business results-driven nature of the plan, the team’s creativity and innovation, and the attractiveness of the market opportunity. The team’s market sense and insight, their ability to visualise concepts, and the skill with which the marketing plan is presented will also be assessed.
The role that marketing plays continues to evolve into a hybrid of creative, technical, analytical and people-to-people communication functions. Steven Fong, chief agency officer at Sun Life Financial, believes the Young Marketer of Tomorrow contest will provide participants with a unique opportunity to demonstrate their skills by working on real-world challenges. “Students taking part in the competition will definitely gain a lot from the challenge,” says Fong.
To help participants to prepare for today’s Young Marketer of Tomorrow contest, an experienced Sun Life mentor has been working with each team. The aim, says Fong, is to nurture the skills and talent of the next generation of Hong Kong marketers. “We believe that young people have unlimited potential, which can be developed by our mentors passing on their experience of entrepreneurship, as well as their insights about developing an entrepreneurial mindset,” Fong explains. Participating students who will graduate in 2019 or 2020 are invited to apply to join the Sun Life GROW Internship programme, which will take place in early 2019.
The ability to write an attention-grabbing tagline, or create a memorable jingle, is no longer the key to career success in the marketing profession. With this in mind, Sun Life put together a tailored workshop for aspiring young marketers prior to this year’s contest, to demonstrate the importance of communication, the entrepreneurial mind-set, and the skills needed to become a successful marketer. For example, Fong says the ubiquitous use of online social networking has elevated entrepreneurial-inspired online marketing strategies to a new level of relevancy. At the same time, budding marketers are also required to mix creative thinking with analytical abilities. “These days, digital marketing requires a large amount of data analysis,” Fong explains.
But Fong also points out that, while digitalisation is shaping marketing trends, marketers are still required to interact with professionals from different fields. Consequently, communication skills and the abilities to influence and collaborate, are an important part of any marketer’s box of tricks. Fong says it is vital that aspiring marketers are curious about the wider world, as well as marketing itself. To do this, they need to keep up with emerging trends taking place within different industry sectors.
The popularity of social media platforms and mobile social networks continues to grow, and Fong says that as an agile organisation, Sun Life Financial has been quick to implement online strategies to attract and engage potential recruits. Online platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and WeChat are used to attract different target audiences. “We have adapted our online recruiting tools and job postings to include advertorials and videos to maximise the reach of our campaigns, and to target the younger generation,” Fong says. A good example is The Sun Life BrighterGen Academy, a new campaign that aims to recruit university graduates who have more than two years of work experience and are looking for the opportunity to embark on an exhilarating career journey.
Because the marketing industry has a tendency for fast-paced innovation, Fong points out that university programmes may not always be able to deliver the latest insights. So in addition to their university studies, students need to commit to self-motivated learning. Fong recommends that students should keep a close watch on technology trends, developments in the use of social media, and read about market research and follow industry sector trends through topical news reports. “Students need to equip themselves with the knowledge and skills to impress potential employers with their ability to contribute fresh and creative ideas,” says Fong, who notes that successful professionals spend their entire careers developing new and existing skills.
