Sixth form Business Studies students were treated to an opportunity to hear from an external speaker, James Hay, who came to the School to talk about his career in Marketing. The students were engaged throughout as they listened to James talk about his experiences setting up his own business, demonstrating key entrepreneurial skills, and his career at well-known business giants, “Mars” and “L’Oreal”.
With the help of some real-life case studies that James himself had worked on, students were exposed to what goes into marketing successful brands such as Snickers, Mars ice cream, Garnier and Ambre Solaire. It was an opportunity for them to make links between the content covered as part of their courses (both AS and A2) and marketing in the real-world. We were fortunate to gain an insight into how these brands react to aggressive competition and how they plan for the future. James finished off by summarising a few things in relation to, “I wish I’d been told when I was your age.” He gave the pupils some sound advice about business related degrees at university and applying for jobs in the future. The students all commented how enjoyable they found the talk and we may just have some budding marketeers in our midst; he certainly did an excellent job of boosting their enthusiasm as we’ve since had some very interesting and thought-provoking discussions in class.
Helen Merry
Business Studies department
