Leading UK health and beauty retailer, Boots, is sponsoring this year’s competition and entrants will learn about the brand’s partnership with The Prince’s Trust, a charity providing support for young people in the UK.

Pete Markey, chief marketing officer at Boots, says, “Our partnership with The Prince’s Trust intends to empower the next generation by providing meaningful opportunities for young people, echoing the sentiment of this global competition giving young people the chance to stand out from the crowd and show off their creativity.”

Students will be challenged to develop a consumer-facing campaign that raises external awareness of both Boots and The Prince’s Trust. Each team will have a budget of £200k to use earned, owned and paid media channels.

They will be tasked with devising a marketing plan to be presented to judges at a live virtual final in March 2022. The judging panel will consist of industry experts across a range of sectors, including representatives from Boots and the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Gemma Butler, marketing director at CIM, says, “Recent research of ours found that more than a third (35%) of young people aged between 16 to 24 have undertaken additional training in the last two years due to concerns around the job market. Being crowned ‘Marketer of the Future' is a brilliant way to bolster a CV and stand out from the crowd in an even more competitive job market.”

Last year’s winners impressed judges with their situational analysis of Samsung’s brand positioning and identification of channel opportunities for its Gen-Z target audience. The success of the initiative has even led many UK universities to integrate the competition into its syllabus.

The competition is open to students in their second or third year at university studying for a marketing degree or a business degree with a marketing module. Applications are open until 3 December 2021. Find more information here.