Pepsi Philippines empowers youth champions to shape the future of Philippine business industry
Lifestyle Friday, June 07, 2019
(L-R: Atty. Jun Manuel, PCPPI Vice President for Legal, Government, and Corporate Affairs; Monique Castro, Senior Manager for Corporate Affairs and Communications; and Gutzee Segura, PepsiCo Marketing Manager with this year’s TeenSpeak champion, Team TeenSiPeak holding their grand prize check; and UP AdCore’sTeenSpeak Project Lead, Bianca Aquino)
After weeks of grueling competition, Team TeenSIPeak composed of 5 Business Administration students from University of the Philippines-Diliman emerged as the champion of this year’s TeenSpeak finals.
TeenSpeak, the annual inter-university idea generation competition is spearheaded by the University of the Philippines’ Advertising Core (UP AdCore) student organization. This year, it partnered with Filipino bottling firm Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines Inc. (PCPPI) in running its 10th year derby.
“Engaging with young minds is very important for us in PCPPI,” said Samudra Bhattacharya, PCPPI President. “What the youth does today tells us where we will go tomorrow. Their unbiased and undiluted thoughts on how we can innovate our business is the best part of working with them.”
Titled “Start with a Sip”—a play on Isip, the Filipino word for think—the competition challenged the students’ strategic skills in coming up withcreative plans to relaunch Pepsi as a multifaceted Filipino brand.
“By partnering with Pepsi, the competition empowered college students to think out of the box, to strive for growth, and to inspire one another to craft ideas that could change the world,” said Bianca Aquino, Project Lead for TeenSpeak.
“In the 24 years I’ve been working, the level of change in the market and society has been enormous. The entire shaping of the world all happened through two generations of mankind and it is the youth who influenced the way the world thinks now,” said Bhattacharya. “This ultimately says collaborating with the younger generation pushes everything forward. The companies of the future, products, consumption trends are all determined by the youth.”
TeenSipeak was one of the top seven teams that stood out from hundreds of participants from all over the country competing to develop their best branding and marketing ideas through boot camps and mentorship sessions with PCPPI and PepsiCo executives. Advancing to the immersion leg of the contest along with other finalists, TeenSipeakwas given exclusive access to PCPPI’s Muntinlupa facilities and an exclusive session with no less than the President of PCPPI, Mr. Bhattacharya.
Addressing the participants of TeenSpeak, Bhattacharya emphasized the power of young minds, ingenuity, and inherent passion.
“My personal mantra that I want to impart to you is do everything to the best of your abilities, in whatever you do. You may have different levels of capabilities, but each of us can do our best and derive meaning, not to mention happiness and satisfaction, in whatever we do our best in,” concluded Bhattacharya.
