After five weeks of coaching sessions, countless team meetings and getting step by step closer to perfecting our pitch presentations for the client Fairphone it was finally time. Everyone could feel the excitement of the groups to reveal their big ideas and show the valuable insights and skills they learned through all the coaching sessions with Coopr’s PR experts. The room where we spend our Thursday evenings preparing for this very day was filled with nervous faces as the groups were excited to present and find out what creative approach the other group came up with.

I think you should brush your teeth on one leg. Why? Well, because this session was not about a new yoga position, but rather about finding ways to boost our creativity, improve our brainstorming techniques, and learn how to master our pitch. And yes, that is one helpful technique. Although the final pitch will take place in two weeks and all of us are focused and determined to nail it, this session not only helped us come up with new ideas for our assignment and be confident in our creativity, but it also helped us loosen up and be ready to embrace the challenge. This was all thanks to Lotte, accompanied by Marloes, who took us through the unrestrained journey of building up creative ideas, by introducing us to some theory, strategies, and also by giving us some fun challenges to complete. Hence, hold on with that leg still up, grab a pen and a paper, and stay focused!

Last week already wrapped up our last session of the Coopr Academy – once again proof of how time flies! Five weeks ago, we set foot into the Candid office for the first time, not knowing what to expect from the sessions ahead of us or who we would be working for on the PR case. I remember the nervous faces in session one when we were about to find out who the client would be, then excitedly listening to Ivette from Madurodam’s marketing team sharing the challenge with us: “Show people that Madurodam is more than just miniature.” Challenge accepted! So, for the following weeks, the ten participants of the Coopr Academy worked on a case in two teams, both supported by one of Coopr’s PR experts. The team of Group 1 had the pleasure of working with Anouk, while the team of Group 2 was supported by Lotte. The weekly sessions guided us along the way to in the end come up with a complete, well-thought-through PR strategy to solve the challenge set to us by Madurodam. We learned about insights and strategy, corporate communication, brand PR, influencer marketing, and how to best use our creativity for brainstorming and the pitch. Sounds like quite a lot, right? We can with certainty say that the range of practical knowledge we gained within those five short weeks was nothing we could have learned at university within the same time. But what did the teams come up with in the end? Was it enough to convince the critical jury of their creative ideas? And did all the hard work in the end finally pay off?