Students from the Department of Marketing at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) were honoured at the Student Marketing Consultancy Projects Award Presentation Ceremony on 24 May for their outstanding consultancy performance for five corporations.

Six teams were singled out for special attention for helping to conduct large-scale surveys, focus groups, field studies and competitor analysis on behalf of the corporations in order to understand recent consumer patterns, psychology and behaviour.

The five corporations were the Dairy Farm Group Limited (7-Eleven), Otsuka Pharmaceutical (H.K.) Ltd. (Crystal Geyser and SOYJOY), Hung Fook Tong Holdings, Watsons Personal Care Stores, and Crocs Hong Kong Limited.

The 11 teams in total that took part in the project — comprising 70 students — found that most consumers nowadays shop quickly and independently, are concerned with collective sharing, and treat shopping as entertainment. They call this new type of consumerism “flash shopping” in which product information is shared through interactive technology.

Students combined their creativity and professional marketing knowledge with the aid of both traditional and new media to help the corporations enhance their brand image, improve product information communication and strengthen customer relationship management. In addition, they offered new perspectives on marketing and operation models to help the corporations fully utilise their competitive edge and explore opportunities with the new consumer groups.

Distinguished guests attending the ceremony included Professor Arthur Ellis, Provost of CityU, Dr Dou Wenyu, Associate Head of the Department of Marketing, Mr Alex Tham Koy-siong, Teaching Fellow of the Department of Marketing, and representatives of the five corporations. The representatives praised the students for their conscientious work, detailed customer analysis and innovative marketing plans, stating that they would consider adopting some of their creative ideas in the future.

“It has been a pleasant experience for us working with different batches of CityU students in the past four years,” said Ms Kumiko Kuroki, Managing Director of Otsuka Pharmaceutical (H.K.) Ltd. “Their performances are getting better and better under the supervision of well-qualified teachers in the Department of Marketing. We were satisfied with their proposals as the students offered a lot of creative ideas that will be useful for further consideration. Their performances were very professional.”

Consumers require interaction and they like to exchange product information with others, according to Lam Tsz-wai, one of the award recipients. “We suggested many ways to stimulate sales by suggesting consumers take part in branding and product promotions,” she said.

In addition, the Department of Marketing presented Active Learner Awards to 60 undergraduates. Among them, 16 final-year students received Outstanding Active Learner Awards and 10 of them won an Outstanding Active Learner Scholarship, the highest number of students to ever win both award and scholarship.

These awards aim to encourage students to actively learn business knowledge and write analysis reports through books, films, study tours and competitions.

“My award encourages me to take the initiative to learn, transform information into knowledge, broaden my vision and enhance my analytical and communication skills,” said Chan Yuet-yui, the 1st runner-up in the Year 3 student category of the Outstanding Active Learner Awards and a Scholarship recipient. “It has also helped me meet the challenges of the ever-changing world and get a job offer from a large China-based financial corporation before I have graduated.”