Synergy Insight Out translates consumer marketing knowledge into practice

Insight Out – an innovative consumer insight programme designed by the Synergy School of Marketing drew to a close last week, with teams vying for top honours at an awards ceremony held in Colombo.

Insight Out was designed to give students an opportunity to have a hands-on approach in experiencing market dynamics thus enabling them to apply their knowledge in practical settings. Each group was assigned a topic to be researched within a specified geographic area where they conducted qualitative and quantitative research into each topic.

Synergy Directors Michael Ranasinghe and Mohamed Adamally said: “We received over 150 entries and it was after much deliberation, that we finally narrowed the field down to four teams. We do hope to expand Insight Out in coming years. At Synergy, our commitment is to develop many such programmes that will, in the final analysis, help create marketing professionals whose knowledge and experience translates into a clear competitive advantage for his or her employer, which at the end of the day is what matters when it comes to professional education.”

Insight Out this year involved four teams of six students each who unveiled their research findings to an audience comprising external judges, students and lecturers of Synergy. The panel of judges headed by Graham Marshall, ICI Head of Marketing included Shaheen Cader of The Nielsen Company and Stanley Carvalho, Director Grant McCann Erickson.

The competing teams were The Transformers who researched life styles in different locations of Colombo; The Knowledge Hunters whose topic was life styles in the South (Kalutara, Bentota, Ambalangoda, Galle); The Spartans who looked at the retail trade in Kandy and Matale covering the modern trade, A/B/C grocers and wholesalers and Beautilicious who were assigned the topic of cosmetics and the beauty care market in Wattala, Jaela, Seeduwa, Katunayake and Negombo.  

Head of Panel of Judges Mr. Marshall said: “The talent that the marketing fraternity has at its doorstep is tremendous – that was the general consensus of the panel of judges. These students not only delivered presentations with excellent content, which was lucid and vivid, but displayed remarkable soft skills. They were confident presenters and managed their time well. Nuances and eccentricities of consumers and geographical segments were captured and the resulting impact on brand choice made listening to these presentations very interesting and stimulating. Our congratulations to the Synergy School of Marketing, for their focused efforts to link learning in to effective practice, which will generate competitive advantage in organisations. The commitment to this worthy goal is clearly demonstrated at such events.”

Team Beautilicious emerged winners of this year’s competition while the team known as The Transformers were named runners up. The winner and runner up teams were awarded cash prizes from Synergy while the members of the winning team were awarded full scholarship until they complete their marketing studies at Synergy. The runners up were granted 50% scholarships. All the participating students were awarded certificates of challenge by Synergy.

Fiona Nanayakkara of the winning team said, “We are extremely thankful to Synergy for giving us the opportunity to participate in this event and we would call it an unforgettable life time experience. None of us were experienced in market research; therefore, we had to start from scratch. Going into the field, from households to salons made us understand consumer’s perception of the product. Whilst developing our analytical and presentation skills we also built up team spirit considering the fact that we all got to know each other from Insight Out. We spent our weekends and after work hours in putting the presentation together. The long hours we spent with the team for the presentation and all the experience paid off and it feels really good to be the winning team. It was truly a fantastic opportunity to be a part of this project and we are proud to be students of Synergy!”

Shyam Sundar of The Transformers who were declared runners up said “We are thrilled to be the runner up at Insight Out this year – and we’re glad all of our hard work paid off. This was a really exciting competition – and the kind of field experience we gained was invaluable. Taking part in the competition also taught us the value of teamwork, delegation and appreciating each other’s strengths. For all of us on the team, this was the first time we had been out conducting research – and it helped us to learn something new almost every minute. We must thank Synergy for giving us the opportunity and our lecturers for guiding us and providing us with all the right tools for today’s market place.”

The programme which was well attended, not only benefited the students who went out on the field, but all members of the audience who had an opportunity of learning through their presentations as well.