Since its launch in 1995, the Joint University Outstanding Marketing Award (JUOMA) has been something of a cradle for undergraduates, allowing them to freely unleash their creativity in a highly competitive field. Teams of candidates compete to devise innovative marketing ideas tailor-made for a selected brand. Over the years, title sponsors have included Yahoo, WeChat, Zalora and RedMR.
The first round of the contest which took place between November 2018 and March 2019, allowed newbies to make full use of their practical marketing knowledge. They also learned to write attractive marketing plans. The second round consisted of a workshop where candidates learned to produce eye-catching promotional videos.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a common Quick Response (QR) code, and this will significantly affect those involved in local marketing and retailing. In the light of these changes, JUOMA this year partnered with Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), a prominent player in the fintech sector.
JUOMA developed a challenging competition using HKT’s e-wallet, Tap & Go. The focus was on improving Tap & Go’s user interface. A hundred teams entered, and 20 of these were chosen to compete in the semi-final. On March 30, five teams presented their ideas in the final.
According to Athena Wong, JUOMA’s chairperson, it’s fundamentally a university-based organisation. Wong hopes students make the most out of the competition. Some new initiatives set this year’s competition apart from previous editions, and the event has benefited from continuous improvement in all areas, she says. “This year, we created the tag line ‘Invent, Experiment, Influence’,” she says.
“Unlike other competitions, we didn’t ask for a presentation or report. We ran an executive campaign requiring participants to ‘make a product’ while doing their presentations, so many prototype products were proposed,” says Wong. “The rationale behind the change was that, in many cases, the entrants know how to promote their product, but don’t fully understand the product, and that’s a vital ‘P’ in the 4Ps of marketing. There was also a brand-new best presenter award sponsored by Prizm Group to motivate participants, and a workshop for semi-finalists at The Wave, which was the first of its kind to take place outside of university lecture rooms.”
“Most importantly, thanks to our promotional activities, we were able to secure more sponsors,” says Wong. “That’s why the day-long, one-on-one consulting session supported by HKT had so much substance. We did more than just talk about planning an advertising drive. We joined with video specialist Charles Chau from CML Creative Production, as well as cpjobs and Prizm, to brief participants about marketing concepts and digital marketing. We were honoured to have Wallace Yau [from Marketing & Channel Management of HKT Financial Services] on board. Wallace shed some light on how the participants’ executive summaries could be improved. Also, we have never had a foreign judge before.”
JUOMA’s closing ceremony took place at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Jockey Club Innovation Tower Lecture Theatre on March 30. Each team played a short video they had filmed and then gave a 10-minute presentation. Teams were questioned by the seven-member panel of judges during the five-minute Q&A session. Team spirit was high, and participants made use of visual aids to explain their strategies and ideas. Judging criteria was divided into two sections. First, the judges considered the structure, feasibility, gimmick-value, coherence and originality of the ideas. Then language, tone and visuals were examined.
Jovy Mok, a Year Two student of International Business and Global Management at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), won the best presenter award. “I think we won the award because the team members knew how to work together. Also, I always addressed the judges’ concerns when I answered the questions,” Mok says, noting that she was the only girl on the team. “Before the competition, we rehearsed the Q&A session among ourselves, and brainstormed to try to predict the questions the judges might ask. This simple step proved invaluable. The award means a lot to me, since it rewarded my efforts and confirmed my presentation skills. I may move toward the marketing field in the future,” Mok says.
“The beauty of the JUOMA competition is that team members can come from more than one university,” Mok says. “Our team was made up of students from Hong Kong University (HKU) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). This enabled participants to make new friends, and exchange views with students from many universities.”
Mok’s team also won the overall championship. One of the highlights was a Tap & Go prototype on a phone that was presented to the judges. “We only had one month to get this ready, and the period coincided with our mid-term exams,” says team leader Jimmy Ng. “Dates varied from university to university. So we squeezed time into our schedules and even conducted a three-hour online meeting at midnight.”
“What differentiates JUOMA from similar events is the versatile insights contributed by teammates from eight different universities,” says Ng. “This means that hybrid new ideas emerge naturally.” It was hard to set the budget level for the proposal, as the financial information about Tap & Go is not available online, he notes. “We had to research a lot of background information about the company. Despite our efforts, the judges pointed out that our projection for implementation of artificial intelligence was not realistic. So we learned not to rely too much on online information,” Ng says.
Johnson Lo, chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, has been a JUOMA judge for over 10 years. Many great ideas are presented each year, he says, noting that some of them are now being used in the commercial sector. “To those who didn’t win, my message is clear — don’t give up,” Lo says. “If you and your team won enthusiastic applause on your way to the final competition, you probably thought you would win. But as I have told previous entrants, it’s risky to base your hopes on your own feelings when doing marketing and planning. The judges need a lot of data to support what your entry may cover.”
“Sponsors keep supporting JUOMA because we want to know the feelings of the young generation. But feelings can’t be used to run a business, and you need data. We would like to encourage competitors to spend time on research in order to properly understand the world,” Lo says.
