MMTE Students Reach L'Oréal Brandstorm 2025 DACH Finals

Last May, Alena Glinina, Andrea Missaglia, and Sara Viavattene, three students from USI’s Master in Marketing and Transformative Economy reached L'Oréal Brandstorm 2025 competition’s DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) regional finals in Düsseldorf. Their team, the GlowGetters, was one of eight finalists selected from more than 500 applications.

Brandstorm is L’Oréal’s annual innovation competition focused on transforming international students’ input into solving real business challenges within the beauty industry. The 2025 edition of Brandstorm focused on the mission to “Reinvent Beauty for Men” and included, among many other participants, USI’s IMCA with the Orthodox and Critical Perspectives in Marketing course.

The GlowGetters proposed a bold, transformative concept: considering men as a target in the world of nail polish. Backed up by data from a 20-country survey, interviews, and a netnographic exploration, they designed an end-to-end male customer journey and realized a 3D-printed prototype for the proposed new product launch: a refillable, beginner-friendly, and gender-neutral dual-tip pen allowing mess-free application of nail polish on-the-go. Beyond product innovation, they had a sociocultural mission: "We wanted to challenge old beauty norms and give men an easy, confident way to express themselves."