The irony wasn’t lost on me, a Northeast student pitching new ideas to the Northeast brand. But this challenge turned out to be one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my degree.

Working in a cross-university team, we were given a live Greggs brief and asked to develop a fresh campaign idea targeted at younger audiences.

We combined strategy, storytelling, and audience insight to create something bold, playful, and grounded in behaviour-led thinking, and we won. (Plus, we won a trophy, not to brag.)

Since then, the opportunities haven’t stopped. We were invited to present our winning campaign at the Marketing Department’s AGM, and I’ve been asked to return in October to give a guest lecture to incoming third years on what it takes to turn a brief into a brand win.