News release from Worshipful Company of Marketors

December 2009

London Business School receives £1000 prize from the Marketors

A £1000 prize for excellence in marketing has been awarded by the Worshipful Company of Marketors for a research project carried out at the London Business School. The Marketors, whose aims include the promotion of excellence in marketing, is the City livery company for marketing professionals.

The LBS nominated market research being undertaken jointly by full-time MBA students Amy Dullage and Hilary Steinway for their paper assessing the ladies market potential for a well-known European golf retailer.

The research used focus groups, individual interviews and surveys to discover how the client could improve their offering for women by understanding their unmet shopping needs. Along with an estimate of the potential market for women’s golf clothing and equipment, they also provided recommendations on ways of addressing key gaps in the client’s provision to help attract customers – from product range to store presentation. ‘Over 1000 women golfers were surveyed’, said Amy, ‘in order to understand what they wanted to wear on a golf course and the experience they would like while shopping for golf apparel.’ Based on their research, Hilary believes that their comprehensive study of the ladies golf market is the first of its kind, as most golf research focuses on men with few questions about women.

Amy Dullage received the prize on behalf of both students on 14th October at the Marketors’ Bowden dinner in the City of London. Hilary Steinway, who lives in the US, was unable to attend. Their prize was for ‘A very practical application of marketing, of real value to a brand on the British High Street’. Afterwards Dullage, who is now a management consultant for A.T. Kearney, London, commented ‘The ceremony at the Marketors’ dinner was a great experience and I was privileged to meet so many interesting people.’ Her career plan is to continue in general management consultancy, with particular interest in marketing type projects.

‘Working on this project with Amy was an exciting and rewarding experience’, stated Hilary Steinway, who lives in Dallas where she is also working for A.T. Kearney, adding that she was honoured that their hard work and innovative results were recognised by the Marketors. ‘This project excited me because of its potential to change the game for the golf retail market, not just from an internal perspective but also in the way the customers consider their options, when it comes to shopping for golf attire and equipment..’ As a general management consultant, Steinway is currently exploring her options and finds herself drawn to consulting work focused on organisation and strategy transformation. Referring to the golf study, she says ‘I enjoyed seeing how marketing plays a role in defining strategy and am hoping for more opportunities to explore this area as I move forward with my career.’

The Marketors Awards Committee gives five Prizes nationally each year for excellent performance in marketing programmes at leading UK institutions. Two LBS graduates, Harriet Cullinan and Kirsten Westlake, achieved a similar joint prize last year for a project entitled ‘Money and News’ sponsored by Reuters, which studied the impact of the digital revolution on the economics of news publishing in the UK.

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