The College of Management, UP Visayas, once again emerged as a national champion of this year's L'oréal Brandstorm: Disrupt Beauty 2030 Philippines National Finals.
CM's Team L'oréal Yarn is one of the six national champions who bested over 2,000 teams to represent the Philippines on the global stage in the competition's International Semifinals. The team is comprised of 4th year Business Administration (Marketing) students Janille Marie Artesano and Chiara Mari Ricablanca, and 2nd year BS Accountancy student Rubeliene Chezka Fernandez Gloria. The national finals and awarding ceremonies were held live via video conference on April 22, 2022.
L'Oréal Brandstorm is a global business and innovation competition that offers students pedagogical and professional experience in tackling a real business case in the beauty industry. It provides them with the opportunity to innovate new ideas and work as a brand leader for the international make-up beauty brand, L'Oréal. Over the years, the competition has attracted more than half a million students from hundreds of universities in 65 countries, turning Brandstorm into a real innovation catalyst.
On its 30th anniversary, L'Oréal reported that over 10,500 individual players competed nationwide. The BrandStorm this year is bigger than ever, as students and professionals alike from any field of study and from ages 18 to 30 were invited to join. Each team of three participants pitched innovative product ideas on one of the three tracks, namely, Green Track, Inclusion Track, and Tech Track, exemplifying L'Oréal's commitment to sustainability, inclusivity, and technology.
Team L'Oréal Yarn won in the Inclusion Track, where participants presented breakaway products and services to empower inclusive beauty. The competing teams were tasked to imagine 2030 innovative beauty products that would help L'Oréal go further in embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
There were two winners per track, and the Philippines' six winning teams will compete on the international stage on May 12, 2022. Notably, UP Visayas is the only non-Manila-based school to compete in the International Semi-Finals, the other schools being UP Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Sto. Tomas, and Enderun Colleges.
CM had a total of five teams that qualified in the Top 24 National Semifinalists, two of which advanced to the National Finals—Team L'Oréal Yarn and Team Beau30.
This year's competition is in partnership with Salesforce, a leader in the digital ecosystem and a customer relationship management specialist based in San Francisco, USA.
In 2017, in CM's first year of joining Brandstorm, a team of senior BS in Management students won the National Championship and represented the Philippines in the Worldwide Finals held in Paris, France. In 2018, another Team from CM won as 1st Runner-up and bagged the Best in Team Spirit Special Award.
The teams from CM are mentored by Prof. Maria Theresa Albaña, Ms. Pearl Gladys Diano, and Mr. Oscal Jinon Jr. (With sources from L'Oréal Group and Prof. Maria Theresa Albaña)
