Three RMU students (Zack Kutchma, Lizanne Marshall, Joshua Troiani) entered
the competition back in January and took 3rd place overall in the
United States.
The competition has been held for 28 years. This year, more
than 40,000 students from 65 countries proposed nearly 10,000 innovations (https://brandstorm.loreal.com/en). At stake was the chance to compete in
the Worldwide Finals in Paris, with the winning team getting the opportunity to further develop their
project by spending 3 months of incubation at Station F, the biggest startup
campus in the world. Most
of the USA finalists came from very large schools such as University of
Maryland, University of Florida, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of
California, Berkeley, University of Southern California, New York University,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Howard University, and Drexel University. It is
wonderful to see Robert Morris
University in this list!
The goal of
this ambitious project was to build a plastic-less future in the beauty
industry. Throughout the entire process, the students had to touch on a variety
of different business areas including consumer insight and behavior, product
packaging and design, technology, branding, supply chain and logistics, and
more. Not only that, but they tapped into their own networks to vet ideas with
numerous industry experts in the respective areas to be sure they delivered a
complete end solution.
From Lizanne
Marshall (mid-April):
“Finding out that our team, the
Pittsburgh Plastic Purgers, gets to share our ideas to potentially create an
impact on the environment and help eliminate the use of plastic in this year’s
L’Oréal Brandstorm 2020 finals is beyond exciting. This has been a dream of
mine to be working with L’Oréal. I am beyond grateful for this amazing
experience.”
Joshua Troiani
commented on their team’s dynamic in mid-April:
“I would like to acknowledge Zack Kutchma and Lizanne Marshall on the hard work, dedication, and
countless hours that went into this project. A simple thank you does not
suffice. These people made such an impact on my college career, and my
gratitude is so profound that a pat on the back for this project just isn't
enough. We have already accomplished so much as a team, and I can't wait to see
what we can do as we move forward even after this competition.”
From Zack
Kutchma after their 3rd place finish:
“It’s really cool when you look back at
how all of this began. Four months ago, I was helping Lizanne with her resume.
In the process, I came across Brandstorm. A week later, Lizanne, Josh, and I
found ourselves in front of a blank whiteboard, thinking about how we were
going to create a plastic-less future in the beauty industry.
The three of us realized that our
chances of actually advancing was about 1%. However, I made the two a promise:
If we all dedicated ourselves, we would be one of the 10 teams standing on
stage at the USA National Finals in NYC in May.
While it wasn’t the NYC skyline we had
hoped for, the three of us did make it to the USA Virtual Finals. Not only did
we make it to “NYC,” but we were honored to have placed 3rd in the United
States out of 2,800+ students, putting us in the 0.3%.
I’m extremely grateful for Lizanne and
Josh for taking this journey with me! I can’t imagine another two people I
would’ve wanted to experience this with.”
From Regina
Kendrick, Assistant Manager II, University Relations & Employer Branding,
L’Oréal USA:
“On behalf
of the L'Oréal USA Brandstorm Team, I want to congratulate you all on a
fantastic Brandstorm 2020. This year was by far the most competitive in history
as we had over twice the number of teams competing than last year and more than
any other year before. We were blown away by how innovative and thoughtful your
ideas were, which did not make selecting the Brandstorm 2020 USA Top 10
National Finalist Teams an easy task.”
Although they
did not win, coming in 3rd means they are eligible to compete again
next year.
Congratulations
to these gifted students!
