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Every year, IÉSEG emphasizes the power of experiential learning. This was once again on full display during the latest Innovation Marketing Hackathon, an intensive, four-day capstone event designed for 115 Master’s students in the Digital Marketing & Innovation apprenticeship program. 

Divided into teams of five to six members, the students were challenged to solve complex, real-world marketing issues provided by three major corporate partners: Nobis, Pernod Ricard, and the Michelin Guide. They had only three days to move from a blank page to a pitch-ready strategic solution. 

A flagship experience built on real-world challenges 

Now in its fifth year in its current format, the Innovation Marketing Hackathon has become a flagship course within the Master in Digital Marketing & Innovation program. Coordinated by four professors — Roberto ABRAMOVICH, Laurie Ann UNDERWOOD, Gwarlann DE KERVILER, and Tiago RATINHO — the event combines the intensity of a professional consulting project with the pedagogical objectives of a classroom experience.

The hackathon’s success relies on the complementary expertise of its four academic coordinators. Roberto ABRAMOVICH oversees the overall design and strategic direction of the event, ensuring that the experience remains both academically rigorous and professionally relevant. Tiago RATINHO brings his entrepreneurship background and leads the process design, helping students navigate the innovation journey from idea generation to final recommendation. Gwarlann DE KERVILER plays a key role in developing the business cases and collaborating with partner companies to create realistic and engaging challenges. Laurie Ann UNDERWOOD combines co-organization responsibilities with direct client management, particularly through her long-standing collaboration with Nobis, while also ensuring high standards of communication and execution throughout the event. 

Organizing the hackathon is a year-long undertaking. From designing realistic business cases and recruiting corporate partners to coordinating logistics and coaching students, the faculty team works to create an environment in which students can fully immerse themselves in real business challenges. 

“The objective is to put students in situations that feel tangible, where they are actively conceiving a real business scenario from start to finish. We want them to create solutions that are relevant, on target, and valuable for the client, grounded in a carefully designed context that mirrors real corporate decision-making. At the same time, we want our corporate partners to feel that their investment of time and expertise is truly rewarded.” – Roberto ABRAMOVICH, Academic Director and Coordinator of the Marketing Innovation Hackathon 

With 115 students working simultaneously on three different client challenges, the event is one of the largest hackathons organized at IÉSEG. The initiative also benefits from the support of the Corporate Relations Department, which helps strengthen relationships with partner companies and create future opportunities for students.

High stakes and real-world challenges

For the third consecutive year, luxury Canadian outerwear brand Nobis supported the initiative. Their brief this year tackled one of the most pressing questions in modern marketing: How can a luxury brand ethically and successfully leverage Generative AI to engage French consumers? Additionally, students had to navigate the balance between sustainability initiatives and consumer price sensitivity. 

To deliver viable solutions, students couldn’t just rely on theory. Laurie Ann UNDERWOOD, Senior Professor of Practice in the Marketing & Sales Department, highlights the rigorous methodology required:

“I kept emphasizing two things to the students. First, if you use Generative AI to get some ideas, it’s OK, but make sure you use it in a way that makes you look more professional, not the opposite. Stick to the client’s brief, deliver what they need, cut out the AI ‘fluff’. Secondly, every single decision has to be backed by data. Our student teams conducted 15 interviews with people in the target market, via Zoom, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings in only three days.” 

Pernod Ricard under the coordination of Gwarlann DE KERVILER challenged students to explore innovation opportunities in response to evolving consumer habits of non-alcoholic beverages. Teams were asked to identify a promising market opportunity, define a target audience, and develop a complete concept proposal built around one of the company’s existing brands. Beyond the product idea itself, students had to consider positioning, branding, and go-to-market strategy to create a compelling and commercially viable proposition. 

The Michelin Guide cases, under the leadership of Tiago RATINHO and Roberto ABRAMOVICH, presented students with two complementary strategic challenges, both centered on the evolution of its role in the food ecosystem. The first case focused on the customer journey and leveraging their 125 years of brand authority and a rich global heritage to address marketing opportunities and data challenges. The objective was to rethink how users discover and engage with places they want to visit, and how the brand experience could be redesigned across touchpoints.

The second case invited students to take a broader strategic perspective and explore how the Michelin Guide could have an even more central role in the world of food lovers. Beyond its traditional role as a guide, teams were encouraged to imagine new ways for the brand to strengthen its positioning, deepen engagement, and expand its influence in an increasingly fragmented digital environment. 

72 hours of high-intensity coaching 

To guide them, students benefited from academic coaching by the four professors who co-organized the event as well as expert industry insights from the participating companies. 

Throughout the three-day sprint, student teams received daily feedback from faculty members. On the third day, students participated in one-on-one coaching sessions to challenge assumptions, refine their recommendations, and strengthen their final presentations before facing the jury. 

On the final and fourth day, each team had ten minutes to pitch its strategy directly to the client companies, followed by a ten-minute Q&A session in front of a professional jury. Ultimately, the corporate partners selected the winning teams and awarded prizes to recognize the most impactful solutions. 

Beyond the rewards, the event proved to be a powerful networking accelerator, with several students immediately inquiring about internship opportunities with the participating brands. 

The perfect segue into the professional world

“For the students, I think it’s an ideal segue into the next step of their lives. It’s a competition, there are prizes to be won, but more importantly, it’s a unique chance for to make an excellent impression on a major brand. There is academic coaching for sure, but at the end of the day, it’s the corporate client who decides. This brings a unique energy. It’s highly intense, very physical, but it ends with a truly satisfying moment in which students feel incredibly proud of what they achieved.” – Laurie Ann UNDERWOOD. 

With successful corporate partnerships, growing involvement from industry, and increasingly ambitious challenges, the Innovation Marketing Hackathon continues to demonstrate how IÉSEG bridges academic learning and professional reality. For both students and companies, it offers a unique opportunity to collaborate on meaningful business challenges while building connections that often extend well beyond the event itself. 

Creating value beyond the classroom 

“With its combination of academic rigor, real-time execution, and close collaboration with leading brands, the Innovation Marketing Hackathon has become not only an educational exercise, but a genuine co-creation platform between students and companies. It generates also rich business insights to the faculty as it sees emerging topics being formulated and addressed and documented as business cases”  – Roberto ABRAMOVICH. For corporate partners, the event offers a unique opportunity to test ideas, explore strategic challenges through fresh perspectives, and engage directly with high-potential talent in an intensive and highly immersive setting. As the hackathon continues to grow in scale and ambition, IÉSEG reinforces its position as a trusted partner for organizations looking to innovate alongside the next generation of marketing leaders.