The Entrepreneurship Hub of Oulu universities, Business Kitchen, will be filled with branding enthusiasts, when Brandathon, a “brand hackathon”, is organised in Oulu on 24–25 November 2017 for the second time.
Brandathon challenges students, businesses and marketing professionals to co-create brand success stories. It is a two-day event where teams ideate creative solutions for the case companies’ branding-related challenges.
The event involves three interesting case companies: Liikuntakeskus Liikku, the fastest growing gym in Finland; Kotikatu 365, a unique urban shared living concept; and Smartblock, the most comfortable workspace cube in the world. Each company has a branding-related challenge to which they seek solutions and new perspectives.
In Brandathon, students and professionals work together to innovate solutions to these challenges with the help of marketing specialists. Teams have two days to present their solutions to companies. The companies and the jury of experts will reward the best ideas.
The event offers also interesting keynotes as the CEO of Design Forum Finland, Petteri Kolinen, and the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) branding professor Richard Gyrd-Jones, talk about the methods and tools of branding and its importance for business.
The Brandathon concept was originally developed by Minna Törmälä, a branding researcher at Oulu Business School, for increasing brand awareness and knowledge among students, businesses and professionals. “Brandathon is a way to learn brand building in a new, fun and communal way. For companies it offers fresh new perspectives to boost success,” says Törmälä.
Brandathon brings together about 40 people interested in branding to co-create new brand success stories. The event is organised in co-operation with the Oulu Business School, Martti Ahtisaari Institute, BusinessOulu, and the Oulu Entrepreneurship Society.