The Artificial Intelligence Center Hamburg (ARIC) e.V. is the “home for artificial intelligence in Hamburg”. Positioned at the intersection of business and science, it acts as a link between application-oriented research and practical application.
Leveraging businesses through AI is on the agenda of startups, SME and corporations. But how to identify parts of their value creation with a potential to apply AI? How to prove whether available data are suitable or can be processed to serve the beneficiaries – and how can a respective project be organized?
As an independent non-profit association, ARIC acts as a matchmaker, forming teams to create solutions. They connect commercial, scientific, societal and political stakeholders, building one progressing network. ARIC supports the first proof of concept, the setup of R&D (research and development) projects and the development of consortia (temporary alliance of companies, especially banks for the joint excecution of major investments).
Bringing together many stakeholders with different needs is a challenge – not least when it comes to communication and positioning. Therefore, ARIC brought the BU’s international 3rd semester Brand Innovation master’s students on board to develop communication strategies.
The goal was to build on further brand awareness for ARIC, positive brand familiarity towards the association and the topic of AI, and brand consideration to guide potential partners on to the hub.
During this final practice project of their studies, the students were closely guided by Jan Schnedler, founding member and Chief Legal Officer of ARIC, and our independent lecturer Stefanie Mager. They assisted in questions regarding AI, concepting and communication. The “brand innovators” worked individually on their projects, developing different approaches, based on market and trend, target audience as well as competing network member analyses.
In the final presentations, a selection of five students won an elevator pitch: They were given the opportunity to present detailed results in front of the client. Every concept offered a marketing activity with themed messages, message style, communication model, media and communication strategy as well as positioning and a guideline to market research the scenario.
Jan Schnedler is very satisfied with the output: “It was a lot of fun to interact with the students from Brand University. The professional level is high, and the results are very convincing. The input can be truly used in daily business – we will implement some ideas in the future.” As a thank you for their work, he invited the whole course to an exclusive event.
In addition, he awarded not one, but even two winning concepts: Maria del Rocio Gil Rodriguez and Tarun Batra were offered two internships at ARIC to further work on – and possibly even publish – their concepts! They say: “It was an interesting rollercoaster ride of a practice project. The application of AI technology in the corporate sector is very diverse and B2B communication is complex. Working individually on an event format and campaign for ARIC thus was challenging – it pushed us to our limits. In the end, every effort was a great learning experience for us.” Stefanie Mager thinks: “Inciting transparency and B2B dialogue in the emerging field of artificial intelligence was a forward-looking opportunity for the employability of our high potentials.”
We would like to thank Jan Schnedler and ARIC for the cooperation.
