THREE first year students at the University of Sussex School of Business, Management and Economics have received £1,000 for their winning ideas in a marketing competition in collaboration with Big Yellow Self Storage.

The objective of the brief, which was given in person by Big Yellow’s head of marketing Anthony Chenery, was to increase awareness of the leading self-storage company within the home buyers and renters audience.

Entrants were challenged to come up with a response in four weeks and pitched their ideas to Anthony and James Sutton, teaching fellow in marketing at the university.

The winning pitch was delivered by Samantha Letts, Emma Sivess and Emilia Roberts.

Their proposed marketing strategy featured impressive strategic thought in terms of how they segmented the home buying audience.

Samantha, Emma and Emilia also excelled on targeting and media rationale with some great ideas around how to raise awareness of self-storage to people who are in the home buying process.

All undergraduate and postgraduate marketing students at the university were invited to enter the Student Marketing Competition to put their skills to the test, but it was Samantha, Emma and Emilia who fought off the other contenders in a competitive pitch to come away with the top prize of £1,000 cash.

In addition to first place, prizes were awarded for second and third who came away with £600 and £400 retrospectively.

Mr Chenery said: “Big Yellow’s commitment to supporting the community includes helping local students and this marketing challenge enabled us to do that.

“We gave the teams a real-life marketing brief to work on and all the teams presented back some fantastic ideas. Congratulations to the winners for an impressive and well thought out plan.”

Mr Sutton said: “We wanted to give students a flavour of the real world of marketing before they embark on their adventures in their chosen careers.

“Having the chance to work on a real brief will be invaluable experience for all the students who took part.

“A massive thank you to Anthony and the team at Big Yellow for coming up with a great brief and offering such generous prizes.

Winning team member Samantha Letts said: “It’s been an amazing experience to work on a proper brief from a great brand.

“We jumped into the competition not knowing entirely what to expect but knowing we wanted a challenge!

“After becoming so engaged through the introductions we brainstormed and collected ideas - finding huge passion in the subject.”