College-level business competition L’Oréal Brandstorm introduces the top eight teams competing in the National Finals on April 25. This year, teams are tasked to develop a disruptive innovation for skincare to attract and engage health-conscious consumers online and offline.
Teams include BrandBabes (University of the Philippines Diliman), Into Your Genes (UP Diliman), Brandhurricane (De La Salle University Manila), Innovature (Enderun College / UP Diliman), Skin Queens (DLSU Manila), RegSteffiJe (UP Diliman), Beauty Fixers (UP Visayas), and Teamnovate (DLSU Manila).
The winning team will fly to Paris, France, where they will be mentored by L’Oréal experts at Station F. They will demonstrate the feasibility of their concept to a collection of decision-makers for a chance to develop a prototype of their project as a brand under the L’Oréal Active Cosmetics Division.
Created 27 years ago, L’Oréal Brandstorm has enabled L’Oréal to discover new, homegrown talent by putting students through real-life situations to reveal skills that are daring, tenacious, innovative, and entrepreneurial in spirit.
Life after Brandstorm
For Sarah Santos, 2009 Champion from DLSU Manila, her decade-long career at L’Oréal began as part of Team Bang, the first-ever Philippine representative at the Brandstorm Global Finals in Paris. Teams were tasked to create the first fragrance line for Maybelline New York. Santos and her team pitched Maybelline Disco, a “mix-your-own” perfume line which allows customers to curate a scent that perfectly complements their personality and mood.
“Brandstorm basically jumpstarted my career. After the competition, I was hired by L’Oréal and the rest was history!” enthused Santos.
Having made it as far as the Brandstorm semi-finals in her junior year of college, Joan Hwang returned the following year as part of Team Istas from UP Diliman, during which they won as the 2013 Champion.
They were tasked to develop an innovative breakthrough plan for L’Oréal Paris hair care in Southeast Asia. After noticing the over-saturation of hair care products that catered to women, Hwang and her teammates created a line for L’Oréal Men Expert. The final product, Ultra Chrome, was a full hair care line that boasted three variants to address the most common concerns among men.
“The world finals was really awe-inspiring, because L’Oréal never does things on a small scale,” recalled Hwang. “The competition showed me that even though the Philippines is a small country, we do have the capability to compete on a worldwide platform and hold our own among so much cultural diversity.”
For Hwang, Brandstorm was her door into L’Oréal. “Brandstorm was that opportunity for me. I’ve been working for L’Oreal for almost six years already.”
As part of the Little Lion, Katrina Lim and her teammates from Ateneo de Manila University proved themselves to be the “little team that could” of the 2016 Brandstorm. Inspired by their experiences as millennials and the ever-evolving outlook on natural beauty, Little Lion wanted to empower consumers to bare it all with La Roche Posay.
“Having participated in Brandstorm gave me a better picture of what it’s really like in the real marketing world, which helped me in choosing the job I wanted when it came to job hunting,” shared Lim.