The office is calm before work starts. Almost no one comes early here, so I have a moment before I have to put on the mask of enjoyment to write a little. It has been a long time since my last entry. Posts have been drafted then abandoned, or drafted then deleted. Funny how I am living in a supposedly less stressful way as compared to studying, yet I hardly have time to do things for myself anymore.
Of course, that’s not the point to this entry. What I really wanted to talk about was the competition that I took part in between the last post and now – L’Oreal Brandstorm. And I guess the post title was a misnomer. I do not regret anything that we have done for Brandstorm, In fact, I am proud of my team. We have come so far from that first conceptualization while sitting on the benches of a certain university in the city centre. It’s a pity that The Body Shop did not see the diamond in the dust.
You know, I don’t exactly remember how I got into the competition in the first place. I wasn’t planning on joining this year since I had this internship at SUTL. I think it was a text message from either Alan or Karen asking me if I wanted to join their team. I thought to myself, this would be quite fun. I haven’t really had the opportunity to work with them before this even though we were all marketing students (except Shell with Alan).
With that, we began our epic journey of trying to balance our separate internships with submissions, meeting almost every other night to discuss what our new product would be. When we submitted our proposal during the prelims, it was after one long night of preparation and research at Karen’s place. We hardly slept a wink, had MacDonald’s and emo talked about our dads. We talked about our problems at work, and got to know each other better in the process. None of us knew if our concept of Lingering Fragrance would work out, but it did for the prelims.
We were taken aback to hear Tambyah tell us that we got chosen for our concept. I guess we were not sure of it up to that point. In the preparatory presentation to profs, we were shot down for our uninteresting, boring and static slides. And I took especial offense since it was done over my computer. With the short week that we had, we improved it by leaps and bounds, radically changing it to have less info on screen, but much more on speech. Of course, we also tried to do up our collaterals to impress.
We now know of course, that it was not enough for L’Oreal folks. I don’t think I ever went through such a great experience though. Great not because it was easy to do, but great because I got to do it with great friends, and got to know them better in the process. And great because I now know what it really means to truly believe in your product, and to treat it like your little baby.
Even though we are walking away from this prematurely, we walk away with our heads held high. And with greater confidence to conquer our dreams. Exuding our fragrance and unleashing our confidence wherever we go.
Thank you Alan and Chuntong for the opportunity!
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