A Brand New Brand Course with Miltton in action at CERS
The department of marketing in Hanken introduced this fall a new master’s level course Developing Sustainable Brands with the Finnish-based communications office Miltton. The study program at the course is closely tied to case companies which have offered their practical business and marketing questions for students to solve.
“Dealing with the real problems that companies have makes studying more difficult than traditional way of studying inside the university”, says Tuuli Tuominen, one of the students in the course. “But this way we learn much more, because it is not enough just to grasp the theory. We have to show the company people how the theory really helps them, in practice.”
The course lasts from September to December, so that the students have had plenty of time to steep themselves into their sponsoring companies’ cases. The case companies are all well-known Finnish multi-nationals: Finnair, Wärtsilä, Neste, Kesko and Alko. The course is bound around three theoretical themes, sustainability, communication and brand development, and the company cases have offered a variety of views to the themes, from sustainability in internal communication to gaining more understanding about the generation of millennials.
Miltton has had several methodological lectures by its professionals, and there has been two contact persons from Miltton answering students’ questions. “What I most have learned from Miltton, is the significance of storytelling”, thinks Tuuli.
In her opinion, the course has been quite hard with a lot of independent group work, learning diaries, written reports, academic reading, and case pitching for company representatives. “We have had to be active ourselves all the time with our case companies. That is also why I think it has been a very useful course, and great networking, too.”
What she sees as the most important message from the course is that any company can no more just publish a separate CSR report and think it has done its job with sustainablity. “They really have to think through and handle well sustainability issues in all their business and communication. Because sooner or later the truth comes to light, always.”