THEIR marketing ideas have made them world champions.



But not before they underwent an image change to be 'hip'.

Mr Maurice Png, 25, Ms Eliz Tan, 23 and Ms Tran Thi Thu Huong, 25, beat teams from 34 other countries to emerge winners in an international marketing competition in Paris.

The fourth-year undergraduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS) were there for the finals of L'Oreal Brandstorm 2007, a yearly marketing and branding contest for students.

This year, contestants had to revamp Redken, a L'Oreal brand.

The NUS team created a line of hair products for men that would come in containers with a sliding mechanism, like those in handphones.

The designs are meant to make users feel 'powerful and confident'.

It won them top honours at the local L'Oreal Brandstorm finals in May.

But for the international event, the NUS team members - a self-confessed 'shy' trio - had to market themselves as well.

And their usual jeans-and-jacket outfits had to go.

Ms Tan said: 'At the international finals, we had to change our presentation style quite a lot. It was unlike the Singapore finals, where it felt like any other school presentation.'

For one thing, they had to present on a stage in Paris.

They were also styled in an 'urban' fashion to suit Redken's image, said Mr Png.

Decked out entirely in black, the trio, who called themselves Citrus Fresh, sported immaculately-coiffed hair and heavy makeup.

Mr Png added: 'For a moment, we felt like rock stars.'

He added: 'Some of our friends who know us well thought we looked ridiculous - because it wasn't like us.'

In contrast, their product concept hardly changed, said Ms Tran.

'We knew we had a good product - it was just the presentation we had to work on. We had to come across as hip and edgy,' she said.

The team members had to deal with some misfortunes at their presentation.

First, they lost their advertising boards.

Ms Tan said: 'We were all quite shaken, but we decided to laugh it off and asked the judges to imagine what the boards looked like.'

LOST SOUND

Then, a technical glitch made them lose sound for one segment of their presentation.

Mr Png said: 'We felt quite stupid just standing there, posing without the music, but thankfully, the sound came on halfway through the presentation.'

Despite these hiccups, the team impressed everyone enough to win and even bag the People's Choice Award, given to the team with the most audiencevotes.

'For me, that was the most memorable moment of the contest,' MsTan said.

Citrus Fresh won a trip worth 10,000 euros ($20,600) to a city of their choice.

In second and third places were teams from France's ESSEC Business School and Malaysia's Institute of Advertising & Communication Training.

About 4,400 students from 200 universities worldwide took part.

With their prize money, the NUS team members said they are considering going to Athens or New York.

At the international finals of L'Oreal Brandstorm 2003, Singapore also took top spot.

Ms Kwan Lai Heng, human resource director of L'Oreal Singapore, said that clinching the international title again 'shows that Singapore is capable of producing exceptional marketing talents'.