Days ago, the L’Oréal BRANDSTORM 2024 (National Finals) came to a conclusion after fierce competition. The team named The Hair Master composed of Li Nian, Peng Cheng, and Ye Yaojia, students from the School of Management and Economics (SME), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), stood out and was crowned the national champion. This is the sixth time that students from CUHK-Shenzhen have championed the competition. They will represent the Chinese mainland to participate in the global competition in London, the United Kingdom. The team named Omega+ composed of Zhang Xiyue, Abdul Karim Alkhayat, and Ren Jiayi won the third prize with their excellent performance.

The Competition was reported to see a record high in the number of contestants, attracting more than 7,500 teams. After several rounds, a total of 18 teams entered the national finals. In the fierce competition, SME students stood out and won the championship and third prize.

Themed “Reinvent the future of professional beauty through tech,” the Competition encourages the contestants to explore creativities from “augmented beauty services,” “the new point of experience,” or “e-commerce of the future.” During the Competition, SME students fully demonstrated their creativity and practical competence and put forward a series of visionary, feasible, and innovative plans based on their expertise and market insights, injecting new dynamics and vitalities into the development of the hairdressing industry.

Instructor’s Comments

Professor Stella So

Associate Professor, SME, CUHK-Shenzhen

It is not easy for these two groups to enter the national finals. We conducted two rounds of screenings in the early stage. They performed very well in both plan submissions and on-campus offline qualifiers but still needed improvement in their presentation skills and plans. For example, they did not fully consider the segment of the hairdressing and hair care industry, only focusing on consumers and overlooking hair salons, another important stakeholder.

After the first round of plan submission, we held five or six sessions of training. After each session, the students would earnestly adopt suggestions, improve weak parts, add new ideas, and perform better than last time. In the qualifiers, it seemed that they turned over a new leaf with more mature presentation skills and significantly optimized plans, of which almost 80% had been renewed. They demonstrated strong learning ability and potential and made great progress within only two or three weeks. I am so proud of them!