At L'Oréal Brandstorm 'Glitches don't matter, it's the matter that assures a win': MDI Gurgaon team shares its Winning Mantra

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L'Oréal every year organises an innovation competition at an international scale to scout out the brightest and the sharpest minds. This competition has brought together ambitious students from all across the globe for nearly 28 years now. L'Oréal Brandstorm not only focuses on giving students a hands-on experience of the field of innovation but also caters to the practical implementation of concepts learnt by them during their course. The aim of the competition is to offer the students a pedagogical and professional experience and a chance to explore and innovate within the beauty industry. The focus has been on development of entrepreneurial and creativity skills of students. Therefore, this year the reward was a 3-month Intrapreneurship program.

In order to give the new batch of B-School students an insight to corporate competitions and to make their campus life a lot more interesting, Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete)launched an all-new initiative – D2C Winning Mantras, an endeavour to ignite the spirit of competitiveness. We are reaching out to winners of corporate competitions and sharing their message and strategy with you. Today we are in a conversation with Shreya Gupta, Kaushal Dhanuka and Baruni Goel from MDI Gurgaon, the Winners of L'Oréal Brandstorm.

Read on and watch the video to get an idea about their experience and strategy for the competition.

Structure of L'Oréal Brandstorm

L'Oréal organizes this competition every year where they partner with one of their divisions and roll out a case study. This year they partnered with the Skincare division and the problem statement focused on reinventing the future of skincare industry. All the relevant material and resources were provided to guide the students and enable them to come up with a feasible solution. The highlight of the competition was constant engagement of the L'Oréal team with the students which really helped them.

L'Oréal Brandstorm was divided into 5 major rounds which were as follows:

• Campus Round – All interested students were asked to submit their entries from which firstly, the partner professor in the campus selected the best entries and thereafter L'Oréal team selected the best entries. The shortlisted teams proceeded to the next round

• Regional Round – From this year a Regional Hackathon was started by L'Oréal in which the teams were supposed to present their idea initially to a jury and get feedback. Thereafter, the team, on the basis of the feedback, had to edit the presentation and make a 5-minute video and send it further.

• National Round – The National Round was organised in Mumbai where the team presented their idea to a panel

• International Round – This round was organised in Paris. The winners of the National Round were given an opportunity to go to Paris and represent India. This round had teams from various countries.

• World Round – The World Round saw 6 best teams, shortlisted after the International Round, from all across the world present their ideas to the jury.

What was the case study all about?

When we asked the team to share details of the case, Shreya shared that this year L'Oréal partnered with Active Cosmetics division which did not have any presence in India. As a result, it became nearly impossible for them to do any sort of primary research and their entire focus shifted to the Secondary Research. The team prioritized the problem statement and this helped them in later rounds as well as they “Nailed the Brief”. She further mentioned that it was the Hackathon which actually helped them in understanding what the problem statement was all about as earlier they had a different understanding of the idea. Shreya emphasizes that “Feedback should be taken very seriously”.

As per Baruni, the most interesting and fascinating element about the L'Oréal Brandstorm case was that it wasn’t restricted to a point. This gave them an opportunity and the freedom to explore the case from a wider perspective and go with any brand to build an idea.

Kaushal believed that it is the idea that matters the most. They were able to realize the relevance of adding a global perspective to their idea and widen the scope further. During the start of the competition, Kaushal had only basic knowledge about the skincare industry of the world but with the extensive research done during the competition,  he has learnt a lot and this competition has actually broadened the horizon for team as a whole.

What makes a winning presentation?

When we asked the team what exactly makes a presentation worth winning at a competition of a scale of L'Oréal Brandstorm, they shared certain essentials which comprised of:

• Most important thing is to have a clear structure and vision in your head. The focus should be on the identification of all aspects you wish to cover so as to give a picture to your big idea.
• Make sure to explain the problem you are trying to solve and the net impact of your solution on the business or the customer.
• The presentation should not be text-heavy and your pitch should complement the slide well. The team goes by the rule ‘Your Pitch Matter’
• The presentation should contain definitions, problem statement and solutions explained very briefly. The trio added financials to their presentation as well which other teams didn’t and it proved really beneficial for them as it was evident to the panel that this team had gone an extra mile.

Were there any roadblocks or obstacles you faced?

Baruni explains that since the idea was actually supposed to be incubated in Paris by L'Oréal for three months and they were looking forward to investing time and money in the idea. So the focus was on “Scalability and Feasibility at every stage. We struggled with that initially but worked on it. We ensured that our idea matched with the target audience and what L'Oréal stood for as a brand. So idea fit was a major concern”.

Kushal went on to add that “Proper understanding and feedback made us narrow down our idea. Professor and L'Oréal team helped us a lot throughout the competition”.

Adding to Kushal’s point, Shreya mentioned that this competition was completely marketing based. Participating in this competition has actually made it possible for them to understand the concepts of marketing a lot better now.

How did you impress the Jury?

For the National Round, the team got to know about the jury beforehand. It consisted of Sales Head of Google India, MD of L'Oréal, RNI and HR Head of L'Oréal. They tried anticipating the questions that can be asked by the panel. Each jury member was asking questions from their area of expertise. Shreya mentions that they had divided that who will be addressing what type of questions beforehand and had prepared a complete list of questions that can be asked which mostly proved correct and helped them in winning.

Unexpected moments from the D-Day

During the National Round, there were certain glitches wherein Shreya’s mike was not working initially. Then in the International Round, the prototype of the product that the team prepared fell during the presentation but they handled all this very well. Now the team laughs at these minor glitches and Baruni emphasis “Don’t let these minor glitches make you nervous during your Pitch, as the company is focusing on the idea, not on all these small mishaps. We didn’t let these affect us”.

Kaushal went on to explain that it is the idea that mattered the most. The jury was looking at three factors namely, feasibility, sustainability and the commercial aspect.

What made L'Oréal Brandstrom different

For Kaushal, it is the wide scope of the competition that makes the competition different. The problem statement was not specific which made it possible for them to look at a wider range of ideas to look and pick up from. Also, the international exposure offered by this competition was an opportunity of a lifetime as not many competitions offer such exposure.

As per Baruni, the competition is very structured as it goes on for 5 months and tries to focus on every detail. For her, this competition turned out to be the Biggest Marketing Lesson as it involved extensive work. A chance to visit the headquarters, attend lectures by L'Oréal team, meeting employees and conversing with teams from 60 countries was an experience beyond imagination.

A comprehensive process to make it to the top

The team elaborates that every presentation emphasized a different aspect that they considered important. It was really interesting to see what other teams had in mind and each team was very well prepared.

The L'Oréal Brandstorm jury consisted of 15 people in the International Round and to reach the top 6 teams for the World Round, the teams had to pitch their idea to 2-3 panels. The process was really comprehensive as they needed the best idea.

Importance of corporate competitions

The MDI Gurgaon team shared the following insights in regard to the importance of Corporate Competitions:

• The most important lesson is that these competitions are extensive and comprehensive which help you learn a lot. It gives you an idea about the real scenario.
• An opportunity to interact with industry biggies and other teams give you a great opportunity to do networking which is extremely important.
• These corporate competitions always become a talking point during placement interviews and can actually give your CV a boost
• You get to learn about specific industry and problems which are not included in the curriculum. It provides you entrepreneurial experience, as from identification to presentation and incubation of an idea

Any advice to B-School students

When asked about one advice that they wish to give B-School students, Shreya, Baruni and Kaushal shared that:

• It is very important to take every feedback seriously and positively and not get offended
• They said that it is important to ‘Choose your team right’ and have people from different expertise in the team.
• Go with an open mind, do best and experience as much as possible. Try to acquire new skills on the way with the parting remark being “Enjoy it while you live it”

To know more about their experience and the competition, watch the video.