Media and Communication students from Mahidol University International College presented their strategic marketing communication proposals to 24 FIX, a maintenance service solution company, during a virtual pitching session. The proposals were presented online following the university’s response to the current COVID-19 situation and related concerns about the health and well-being of the students and staff.
The original case study was given by 24 FIX as a face-to-face brief during a classroom session. Students in six teams were given a real competitive brief to produce the best integrated marketing communication strategy for the company which specialises in end-to-end quality maintenance services both for households and SMEs. However, following the announcement of the COVID-19 outbreaks, the teams moved to collaborating virtually via online media to develop their proposals. For four weeks they were working on creating campaigns to increase awareness and optimise marketing communication for 24FIX, acquiring not only practical experiences of working on a real business case, but also learning how to collaborate in virtual teams and respond to crisis conditions when regular workflow is disrupted.
“Thanks for 24FIX we were able to offer the students a real educational challenge; and due to the current pandemic this experience was also enhanced by additional benefits of learning from collaborating in virtual teams”, said Dr. Pavel Slutsky who teaches the course. “This semester was unique — it gave the students a unique opportunity to gain crisis management experience in addition to learning from a real case through working on a project basis.”
“We were very impressed with the high quality of the presentations given by the teams, the professionalism of their concepts and campaign proposals and the outstanding team spirit shown by all teams,” said Khanisorn from 24 FIX. “As an IT company we know how difficult and hard it is to work in virtual teams, to prepare a pitch presentation and to develop campaign proposals which answer client’s expectations. We deeply belief that the students who successfully participated in this challenging project acquired worth-wile experience. And for our company it was a very valuable experiment in collaboration between business and academia. We got extremely interesting ideas and insights from the students, and will definitely implement some of them in the future.”
