OneMBA European Residency: Day Three
Day three of the residency was so full that I am late in posting this! The good news is that – by now – most of the students (and myself) are more adjusted to the time change, so everyone has a new spring in her step.
OneMBA filled the morning of Day 3 with presentations on “Leading with Ethical Awareness” (Prof David de Cremer, RSM) and “Moral Leadership” (Mrs. Pauline van der Meer Mohr, LLM). After lunch, the group was introduced to marketing with a presentation on “Marketing in a Multicultural World,” team-taught by RSM Professors Stijn van Osselaer and Stefano Puntoni. This was a good briefing for two reasons: 1) The next activity of the day would be a marketing presentation specific to the Heineken brand, as the Heineken Brewery, and 2) The next globally-coordinated course the OneMBA students will take is the core marketing class. And, as a professional responsible for marketing the OneMBA Program, I took copious notes during this session!
By the way – I haven’t mentioned that during all these sessions, the students are sitting with their new global teams. Global teams are changed at each global residency, exposing students to nearly all of their peers during the program. These teams will work on a project over the next few months, wrapping up at the next residency, which will be Latin America in Fall 2010.
The final activity of the day was “The Heineken Experience,” which started with a phenomenal presentation by Mr. Reinoud Wolff, Marketing Manager for Heineken and a RSM alumnus. He described (and good reminder for me) how Heineken strives to connect with its customers’ desires, rather than focus on product attributes in its marketing. In his own words, “There are many good-quality beers, and they all look the same to the consumer.” The brand has to tap into the “desires” that their customers have. In the case of Heineken, this was the desire for a refreshing, pleasant experience. Following the presentation, the group went through the “Heineken Experience,” which is essentially an interactive museum of Heineken beer! It was quite enjoyable, and the tour ended with a beer (pleasantly refreshing!). Check out this silly video that you could take of yourself within the Heineken Experience; this one features OneMBA students.
Below I’m including a few thing: 1) Video of students having group photo taken; location is right outside the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam, 2) Student perceptions of the visit to Heineken Brewery.
Off to Istanbul this afternoon!
