The Headmasters’ Business Award, which was founded in 2015 by the Business Studies Department, has recently been awarded. The competition was open to both Year 12 and 13 Business Studies pupils, and is the culmination of the students’ work on their marketing-based units. A group of six groups of pupils were chosen as the best in their respective classes and they gave presentations to the panel of judges. Members of staff and external judges were invited to the College to judge the award. Headmaster Mr Gregg Davies, Governor Mr Jonathan Hobbs, Director of Marketing and External Relations Mrs Katherine Green, and Director of Bridges Homecare Ltd Ms Wendy James made up the judging panel. Thank you to Mrs Clare Forgie for the following report.
‘Pupils have been working on the marketing-based units for the Business BTEC. They combined this with knowledge gained from a recent visit to Cadbury World in December, in order to come up with innovative ideas for their presentations. Year 12 pupils were tasked with developing a new Cadbury product, whilst Year 13 pupils focused on developing a promotional campaign for existing product Cadbury Crème Egg. Year 12 pupils developed a justified marketing mix, consisting of why the product is unique, the pricing of the product, how they would promote and where they would sell it. The overall winners for the Year 12s were Hannah Burnett, Olivia Lucas and Anna Whitelaw; their presentation was very professional and supported with relevant research, and they had also made the effort to produce samples of the proposed product ‘Popbar’ – a white chocolate bar with popping candy.
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Year 13 students had to produce a 30-second advert, along with a justification for their choice of media, which included costings for social media, TV and outdoor posters as well as an ‘experiential’ idea to involve consumers at events around the UK. Again, the students excelled particularly well in their creative approaches to meet the brief, and the decision was very tough for the judges. However, the winning group of Conor Crowe, Nadia Sherlock and Ben Tresidder clinched it on the basis of their overall rationale, and the idea to link the campaign to Barnados with proceeds being donated to the charity. The quality of work and the presentations impressed the judges, and it is a great reflection of the business students’ hard work throughout this academic year.’
