Staff and student collaboration driving success

Thursday, 22 March 2012

SEAT Headquaters, Milton Keynes

A team of second and third year students from the University of Reading has had fantastic success in a creative business competition run by a global car maker.

The team of seven students, drawn from across several schools and departments including Henley Business School and Film Theatre and Television, has beaten off strong competition from other universities to make it through to the final stages of the SEAT Creative Project, a competition for students to create new digital content to help bring the brand to life.

The students had an ‘immersion day' at SEAT's headquarters in Milton Keynes, learning about the car brand and its products, before settling on a creative concept which they later presented to a panel of company executives and media marketing professionals.

The team impressed the judges at the initial presentation last month, and have now been selected as one of five winning finalists for the competition. They have been given £5,000 to create a video-based campaign to fit in with SEAT's brand values and aspirations.

The Reading team saw off challenges from five other universities which were eliminated from an earlier part of the process.

Co-ordinators Stuart Morris from the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Henley Business School and Dr Lisa Purse from the Department of Film, Theatre and Television, said Reading's success so far had been helped by the excellent collaboration of staff and students across different departments.

"The students' impressive achievement in the first phase of the competition goes to show once again the importance of entrepreneurship and business skills to all students - not just those studying business," Mr Morris said.

Dr Purse added: "We are delighted at SEAT's positive response to the students' work so far. Given the creative talent already shown by members of the Reading team, the praise they have received is richly deserved."