SLIM Marketing Roks is a power-packed and educative project designed by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM), with a view to creating awareness among students on ‘Marketing and Entrepreneurship’. It further encourages them to give free rein to their hidden talents. The event is scheduled to be held in June 2019. Applications will be open from January. This national level CSR project directly caters to senior school children (O/L & A/L) with a futuristic vision. Through this unique and innovative programme, SLIM is on a quest to groom students to enter the challenging business world with the utmost confidence. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Education has given its approval for the project. The structure of the programme is four-fold, comprising of a briefing session, gaming session and presentation session followed by the final event and gala awards ceremony.

The gaming session is devised with an attractive method to open up the mindset of students towards real business scenarios. This segment stimulates and enhances their creativity and strategic thinking prowess, presentation skills and leadership qualities with a view to converting them into future business leaders of this nation. The ‘SLIM Marketing Roks’ programme also offers every student an opportunity to experience a real-life situation of solving and presenting a ‘Corporate’ solution to a given business issue, while competing with other school students. A team of 10 members will be competing with all teams representing both national and international schools. It hones the analytical, creative and sharp skills of budding marketers and prepares them to face future challenges in the corporate world. Last year’s event had attracted more than 60 teams from over 50 schools in Sri Lanka. Briefing sessions of the programme are scheduled to be held in May 2019 at SLIM’s Colombo, Kandy and Matara branches.

The Gaming sessions too will be held at the same venues. The top teams selected will move to the presentation sessions, which will be followed by the final awards ceremony in Colombo. Each participating team is required to work on a real business case study and come up with practical solutions within a stipulated time period on the gaming session day. This method of education nurtures their potential towards marketing orientation, time management and grooms them to venture into the business world with confidence. ‘SLIM Marketing Roks’ 2018 will attract over 1000 male and female school students in the age category of 15 -18. The project will be conducted in Sinhala, English and Tamil languages.

Following the excitement generated by the last event, over 80 schools are expected to register this year. All Government, Semi-Government and International schools are eligible to participate, besides bringing glory and recognition to their schools. The top three winning teams will be entitled to cash prizes of LKR 100,000, 75,000 and 50,000 respectively. Others will include prizes for first and second runners up for Best Logo, and Best School from the representative regions. The Best Presentation and Best Presenter will be adjudged during the event. Musaeus College Colombo was adjudged the Winner of ‘Marketing Roks 2017’, while the first and second runners-up were St Anthony’s College, Kandy and Mahamaya Girls’ College, Kandy respectively. Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya, Colombo was picked the winner of the ‘Innov8 Take Home Challenge’ trophy.

In addition to the grand prizes for schools, all members of winning teams were awarded valuable gift packs from “Innov8” Premium Books. Pradeep Edward, The President of SLIM and the CEO of Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics, said “The programme was primarily conceptualized to identify potential marketers at school level and endow them with an in-depth orientation on marketing. This power-packed interactive, yet innovative program is designed to educate students on varied aspects of ‘marketing’ and kindle in them a passion to display their hidden talents. The programme was aimed at identifying potential marketers as ‘future professionals’ and ‘entrepreneurs.’” Enoch Perera, the Project Chair of ‘Marketing Roks 2019’ and Snr. Marketing Manager of Piramal Glass Ceylon said, “’Marketing Roks’ is the only National Marketing programme and a CSR project of SLIM for the country that caters to schoolchildren who are about to enter a career after school”.

He said that SLIM is dedicated to introducing quality education programmes for the benefit of future marketers and marketing practitioners. He added, “The significance this time around is that SLIM gaining the reach to cover the whole island with the support of the Education Ministry. The Marketing Roks committee is comprised of fully fledged marketers and as Project Chair, I am confident Marketing Roks 2018 will go to greater heights. The competition will ultimately groom them for the future”. The CEO/ Executive Director of SLIM, Sanath Senanayake said, “’Marketing Roks’ is the foremost CSR program of this nature in the country, which caters to school children. SLIM is dedicated to introducing quality education programmes for the benefit of future marketers and marketing practitioners”. Senanayake added, “Stimulating innate talents of schoolchildren in marketing will enable them to be professionals in any selected field once they leave school.

It will build their personalities and make them young entrepreneurs and professionals. We invite all schools in the island to take part at the ‘Marketing Roks’ programme. This is the only programme in the island that guides schoolchildren to work on real business scenarios prior to entering the corporate world”. The event has grown tremendously with more schools and teams participating and is a good opportunity for corporates to tie up and enhance their brands. Any corporate interested can get in touch with the SLIM Marketing team on 0703268946. We urge all the Principals of schools island-wide to take this opportunity and participate at the ‘SLIM Marketing Roks 2018’ programme. Registration forms will be out soon on the SLIM website at www.slim.lk. The Main Sponsor - “Innov8” Premium Books, Official TV Partner - TV Derana and Official Digital Media Marketing Partner - Inmarc Advertising, will join hands to ensure the success of ‘Marketing Roks 2018’.