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Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Vega’s academic interventions demonstrate brand leadership excellence

The Vega School of Brand Leadership, an educational brand of the Independent Institute of Education, has once again played a pivotal role in assisting companies with their industry challenges through the 2013 Vega Brand Challenge programme. The challenge was conducted on a national level with Vega campuses participating in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg.

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The 87 competing groups, consisting of eight Vega students each, were presented with the opportunity to undertake real-life industry briefs from 26 different external organisations. Once the teams were briefed by clients, they conducted a full brand analysis and extensive research to determine key issues impacting the brands. The students then identified key stakeholders, and developed appropriate brand contact strategies and communications campaigns.

According to Michele Venter-Davies, Corporate Business Navigator of Vega Johannesburg, students worked on many different brands and categories and each brief had its own unique challenges. At least half the clients are non-paying non-profit organisations (NPO), as adding value to people’s lives is a core Vega brand value.

“Clients ranged from multinationals to start-up NPOs being headed by truly inspirational social entrepreneurs. Briefs included design of corporate identities, to strategic brand extension and even the launch of new products. Students engaged directly with established and new target markets, to ensure that the strategies they recommended truly served the needs of the brand – whether it was fundraising, or increasing a client’s market visibility.”

Vega has hosted the Brand Challenge programme for over a decade, which serves to assist South African brands, and also contributes to the Vega grant fund which helps students who wish to study at Vega but cannot afford to do so.

The assessment panel consists of senior field lecturers on the various campuses. These navigators are experienced and effective at cross-field assessment and guiding teams in producing “wisdom with magic” results.

Clients served this year included CHOC, Tomorrow Trust, Bobby Bear, Missing Children SA, Hyundai, Constitution Hill, the Sharks and brands who returned having participated previously, such as ABSA, Microsoft and Grant Thornton.
Andisa Ntsubane, Marketing and Communications Lead at Microsoft commended Vega for the great assistance provided during this year’s challenge.

“This was the second time that Microsoft participated as a Vega client and again, we were blown away by the students’ creativity. Their energy and the excitement for the challenge was clearly visible and their brand passion was almost tangible. They clearly have excellent lecturers and are under great navigation.”

Venter-Davies notes that students participating in the Brand Challenge are provided with more than just an opportunity to develop real-life experience.

“For our students Brand Challenges are hugely rewarding experiences, providing them with hands on opportunities that will benefit them when they enter the business space. In addition to being exposed to real businesses’ brand challenges, students are also required to engage with team dynamics, time management and presentation skills. All their campaigns are backed up by research, which often challenges them to explore people and places they would generally overlook in the course of their daily lives.”

Nadira Singh, Academic Co-Navigator of Durban Campus, concludes that the Brand Challenges are highly effective in giving students practical and theoretical experience. “Through the Challenges and by demonstrating their skills and creativity, students have a great opportunity to showcase their learnt skills and to secure internships or even full time employment with the clients or their creative agencies.”

Any companies wanting to get involved in next year’s Brand Challenge, can visit http://www.vegaschool.com/content/brand-challenges

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