Future Marketers Unleashed: The SAS Digital Challenge 2025 at Royal Holloway

Jennifer_SAS

Future Marketers Unleashed: The SAS Digital Challenge 2025 at Royal Holloway

What do you get when you hand over a thousand virtual dollars, a digital retail web shop and the full power of SAS Customer Intelligence 360 (SAS CI360) to a group of ambitious students for just one day? A fusion of chaos, creativity, caffeine and the kind of bold marketing energy that could only mean one thing: the SAS Digital Challenge 2025 was back and bigger than ever!

The Brief: Build. Market. Win.

On June 10th, the magnificent old tea traders house in the centre of the SAS Marlow estate transformed into the headquarters of six fast-rising digital fashion retailers each launched and led by student teams from the university’s MSc digital marketing program. Their mission?

Choose three fashion products: a coat, a pullover, and a hat.
Create a brand identity for their new retail startup, design a logo, and build a pitch.
Create and execute a one-hour multichannel marketing campaign in real-time.
Sell to a live SAS audience with real buyer personas and real virtual wallets.
Compete for Dragons’ Den-style investment pitch and achieve ultimate glory.

All of it powered by SAS CI360 and overseen and supported by a team of data scientists and marketing specialists who came together to form the SAS Agency, providing analytics, customer insights, and campaign execution services just like in the real world.

Meet the Teams

From the Garden Room to the Boardroom, the house and grounds became a live battlefield of marketing brilliance. Our fearless competitors:

SERUNA
ESCAPE
TheNines
De Vida
DE LUCA
twozy

Each team brought their own flair, energy, and strategic hustle. From pricing tactics to creative bundles and killer product pages, these students showed serious digital game.

The CI 360 Edge: From Insight to Action

With 143 live customers all around the world and $22,400 in virtual wallets up for grabs, the pressure was on. Students leveraged real customer segments like budget-conscious offer seekers and fashion-forward spenders and learned first-hand how micro-targeting, campaign channel mix, and offer timing make or break a brand.

Bonus insight reports and working closely with the data scientists saw intense flurries of activity as each team sought an edge if they dared to spend part of their limited budget. Just like in the real world, it was a game of choices, trade-offs, and fast pivots.

The Dragons, The Dollars, The Drama

As if designing building and activating a marketing campaign was not enough after a flurry of campaign launches across email, SMS, web, and in-app channels, it was time to face the Dragons in their lair:

Ross Thompson, CEO, Bown of London
Anabel Gutierrez, Director of MSc Digital Marketing
Katy Cordingley, Senior Proposals Manager, SAS

Each team had 10 minutes to pitch their business model and results. Investments of up to $500 were on the table but only for the bold and brilliant.

The Final Leaderboard

So, who came out on top of the pile?

Team	Company Value
DE LUCA	$2,661.50
TheNines	$2,459.99
De Vida	$1,782.00
SERUNA	$1,670.00
ESCAPE	$1,606.50
twozy	$1,465.25

Check out the video link here to see how the teams ended up in their respective positions.

More Than a Competition - A Preview of the Future

Beyond the numbers, the SAS Digital Challenge 2025 offered something much more valuable: a glimpse into the future of marketing.

Students didn’t just use SAS CI360, they embodied it. They navigated customer journeys, battled decision fatigue, optimized spend, and told brand stories that resonated. Along the way, they became ambassadors for data-driven, customer-first marketing and potential future colleagues we’ll all be lucky to work with.

Final Thoughts

As one participant put it:

“I learned more about how real marketing works today in this challenge than in weeks of study. It was intense, but insanely fun!”

For the SAS CI 360 community, events like these aren't just recruitment showcases—they're innovation playgrounds. They remind us why we do what we do: empowering the next generation to build marketing that’s intelligent, agile, and built for what’s next.

Want to get involved?

Whether you’re a CI 360 user, partner, or mentor, we’d love to collaborate with you on future challenges. Let’s inspire the next wave of marketers together.

Read Dr. Anabel Gutierrez's post on LinkedIn

Read

Read Liliia Liehkova's post on LinkedIn

#SASDigitalChallenge2025 #CI360 #MarketingInnovation #FutureMarketers #RHUL #DataDrivenCreativity

The original author of this post is @MikeTurner