Competition reflections
A fragrance brief opened up questions about users and brands
The 2024 HFLC season explored a D&G fragrance brief. Four students reflect on what they learned about brand storytelling, visual presentations and seeking advice from industry professionals.
A first competition experience reached the Global Finals
Tyler described this as a first Hult competition experience. Reaching the Global Finals had seemed unlikely at the start, but the team progressed from the preliminary round with mentor support. Learning business concepts and studying with university professors stood out in a journey of less than three months.
The fragrance brief brought different learning questions into focus for other students. Their reflections address how to understand a product’s value, make a proposal easier to follow, and find useful advice when progress stalls.
Jade: looking beyond product features
Jade had thought selling a product was mainly about comparing features. While developing a new D&G fragrance proposal and learning from the brand’s marketing lead, she began to understand the role of emotion and storytelling in luxury marketing.
An empathy-map excerpt from the same season brings together what target users think, see, say and do, alongside buying preferences and concerns. It shows an approach to analysis: form a more specific picture of users before deciding what a product should communicate.
Joelle: making the proposal visible
Joelle focused on making an online presentation more engaging and professional. With teacher guidance, she worked on the proposal’s visual presentation and used MidJourney and Runway to create virtual pop-up store concepts for D&G.
The virtual scenes formed part of the proposal, allowing an audience to see an imagined space and experience. In her reflection, Joelle described developing her ability to use AI through this work.
Bella: asking for help when the team got stuck
Bella’s strongest lesson came when her team hit a roadblock during the global stage. They contacted Estée Lauder’s fragrance training director in Asia and received advice on improving their proposal. The experience showed her the value of reaching out to people with industry experience.
These individual accounts describe changes in knowledge, understanding of brands, presentation and the willingness to seek help. Learning took place during teaching sessions, while developing the proposal, and when students took a question to someone outside their team.
Drawn from four students’ individual season reflections, illustrated with submission excerpts from the same season.
