Tallinn University of Technology

The article first appeared in Estonian in the 1898th number of Mente et Manu.

Ideally, student projects that have been created during study tackle the real-life problems in such a way that everyone benefits – the student gains valuable experience and the owner of the researched topic receives in-depth useful input. This is exactly what happened with the project for the master's course in marketing research, focusing on the brand and marketing of our home university, TalTech.

As a curious market researcher, I always begin the marketing research course by asking what the students' expectations are for this course. The answers are predictable, such as "I want to see a clear connection between the information taught in the subject and practical work." So, practical examples from real life are what students want. As a lecturer, I think about how to teach students to see that practice actually resides within a theoretical framework.

This autumn semester, the learners at the master's course in marketing research were presented a challenge: some students' path to the master's course was linear – secondary school, then bachelor's studies, followed by the first year of master's studies, some learners had been doing other things or came from other universities and then there were also mature micro-degree students with a strong practical background who had registered for the course. Expectations were high, students were curious and full of enthusiasm to get started, as I remember from our opening meeting.

Anne Muldme, who joined the Department of Business Administration in the autumn, contributed to the marketing research course as well – she has an impressive background in marketing and communication and she has also managed TalTech's Marketing and Communications Office. ​​Muldme, who is now sharing her experiences as a lecturer, got an idea to invite the university's own marketing team to the practical lessons of the marketing research course.

Hele-Riin Pihel, TalTech’s Head of Marketing and Communications Office and Head of Centre of E-channels and Kadri Kiigema, Taltech’s Head of Centre of Marketing and Head of Strategic Marketing, came and outlined the university's goals and plans and gave the students a broad overview of the relevant topics and indicators. They were also willing to advise the students.

Osalenud tudengid õppejõu Anne Muldmega
In the photo: some of the students who participated in the course with Anne Muldme - Elis Luusepp, Annabel Rohtjärv, Kedi Teegelmann, Janeli Janson, Kätlin Kõnd, Kristen Otsmann and Laura Roosileht.

The students’ tasks included choosing one of the proposed areas related to TalTech's marketing (brand, communication, admissions marketing or analysis of the specialisation test), familiarising themselves with the data sets entrusted to them and analysing and interpreting them. In the end, they had to make their recommendations: what advice would they give to the university based on the numbers. In a four-week project, student groups became consultants to TalTech's marketing team when they presented the results of their work at our last meeting.

For example, they encouraged targeting micro-degree students in university’s marketing, as they are very likely to be interested in obtaining a full degree as well. They also encouraged using the students’ images even more on university’s advertisements and engaging them actively in marketing. In addition to current youth-friendly communication, they recommended using new environments that are popular among young people, such as Spotify, Reddit, Discord and Twitch.

They considered making an environmentally friendly and sustainable line of communication more visible to be important, as well as having the university represented more boldly and strongly in various discussions in society. In the case of English studies, they suggested paying more attention to female students and the Russian target group. The students wanted more Ingenuity when giving titles to the curricula, adding fields such as ESG, AI or digitalisation to the specialisations – so that students who are studying marketing several times would be extra motivated in regards to particular areas. They suggested using the slogan ‘You Can Be Yourself at TalTech’, as according to the students, it describes the university and student life here in the best way. TalTech should confidently highlight its strengths. We don't have to be better than the University of Tartu, we should aim to be "simply the best university".

Lecturer Anne Muldme: direct contact with the target group

All students have personal experience with the university and they are able to see themselves as part of the target group. This provided a strong basis for relevant and well-justified recommendations.

Each group had its advisors from the university's marketing team and all questions were answered. All data was real, students could work with real tools and experts’ analysis files – they could literally be part of the university's marketing team for a while. However, the university's speciality selection test was a completely new research subject, which demonstrated the students' above-average analytical skills and resulted in very interesting findings. In conclusion, the completed course projects turned out to be really useful for the university and were remembered by the students.

Taltech’s Head of Strategic Marketing Kadri Kiigema: We got some good recommendations

We very much appreciate the opportunity to involve our own students in the development of the university's marketing. Their ability to dig deep, interpret data and make well-reasoned suggestions was quite impressive. We all learned – us as well as them. We got many ideas that will help us market TalTech even better and develop the speciality test further. For example, current micro degree students proposed that the university's Master's studies should be boldly marketed to them and other learners with a similar focus programme approach – positive experience encourages them to undertake a broader level curriculum and we are already working on this proposal today. I hope that our cooperation with the department will continue!

The students wrote in their study journals as follows:

  • It was interesting to analyse the communication of an organisation in such depth – what they communicate, where they do it and how it compares with other universities. Based on this work, I have a better understanding of how TalTech works. (Egerd Ennok)
  • At first I thought that Excel was not my thing, eventually I dug deep in to the tables and it was actually really exciting to search for the necessary information there. Numbers don't have to be scary for a marketer, instead, they can provide valuable assistance. (Kristi Ploom)
  • This was the most exciting task of the course, as we could analyse a real campaign that had already been implemented and our feedback could actually help TalTech's marketing team, so the work was really meaningful. Since I myself work in marketing as well, it was very interesting to see the numbers and ideas of different campaigns and how they were born. The marketing team at TalTech is very cool! They do awesome things that stand out. (Lisanna Karo)
  • We were proud of each other for days, strangers though we were, blindly thrown into the water, and yet we were able to present something as smoothly as if we had been doing group work together for years. That evening will always remain in my heart as an improvisation of a stunning performance for our collective survival. (Lysandra Suursaar)