Led by Centre Director Ms. Sherry Fu from 5th to 24th September, the University of Manchester China Centre organised “The First Marketing Forum: The New Era of Marketing”.

“Shanghai”

The first event kicked off as a company visit to Master Kong on 5th September. Mr. Aries Li, PR at Master Kong and co-founder of University of Manchester China Centre Alumni Big Data and AI club hosted the event and guided our Centre’s alumni delegation to visit Taste Pavilion, Go-to-market Innovation Centre, and Food Safety Centre during which various marketing tools based on big data collected from Chinese social media platforms such as ‘Weibo’ and imitations of real life shopping scenario reflecting how consumers actually make shopping decisions drew much attention from alumni.

“Shanghai”

On the same day, China Centre invited two alumni speakers Ms. Aileen Wei, co-founder of University of Manchester China Centre Alumni Marketing Club, and Mr. Scott Wu, a cross-overmarketer, together with Ms. Sarah Pan, an external speaker and also a prospective candidate to our GMBA programme to deliver a speech regarding DTC Brand Marketing. Around 30 alumni attended this event to learn how to build self-owned brand in a DTC way, learning from cases and illustrations of those successful marketing stories of global and domestic DTC brands.

“Beijing”

The forum also caught much attention in Beijing and Suzhou. On 19th September, a company visit to TerraQuanta in Beijing was welcomed by GMBA alumnus and partner & commercial VP Mr. Arthur Huang, who shared his insights into “Disruptive Technology and Business Innovation”. Alumni showed great interest in creating potential marketing and business collaborations between their own fields and, for some of them, the newly touched industries: commercial aerospace, satellite remote sensing, and AI technology.

“Suzhou”

In the evening of 24th September in Suzhou, the final stop of the China Centre first marketing forum invited four alumni speakers where brand practices from OEM to Brand to Market were vividly illustrated by Ms. Wen Shi, executive member of Tongji-Manchester Alumni Club; Ms. Linglu Tang, 2017 July intake of GMBA shared her 3-step thinking of pharmaceutical marketing; Mr. Wayne Soo, President of MBS Alumni Association Singapore and Mr. Tiger Qiao, DBA Alumnus engaged in heated discussion about the topic of “Entrepreneurship & Innovation in the New Era of Marketing”.