Birmingham’s creative talent set to work

The cream of Birmingham’s student talent were set to work this week, after the B-Hive scheme awarded them with 92 weeks' worth of paid work experience placements at the region’s top marketing and creative companies.

Set up in 2009, B-Hive is supported by Marketing Birmingham and Pitch Consultants, and is designed to give students from the city’s universities the opportunity of winning paid work experience in four categories; PR, graphic design, web design and marketing. Over the past three months, students were challenged to respond to a brief to make Birmingham a greener city, with the top entrants in each category invited to present their ideas to a panel of leading industry judges.

Over 80 students and industry professionals joined Pitch and Marketing Birmingham for the announcement of the 2010 winners following two days of competitive presentations. Each category also revealed an overall winner who will benefit from additional paid placements and accolades.

Sarah Mortimer was named as the overall winner for PR category and will spend four weeks at Willougby PR and Rewired PR respectively. Mandy Wong won the Design group and as a result, will enjoy placements at KLM, McCann Erickson, Seal, RBH, WAA and Unsuitable. Ellie Rance followed scooping the top Marketing position and four-weeks work experience at both Marketing Birmingham and C.O.I. Finally Alex Badau was announced as the overall winner in the Digital category earning paid placements at Made Media, Clusta, Cogent, Freestyle Interactive, One Black Bear and TAMBA Internet.

Emma Gray, Head of Marketing Birmingham said:
“There is a huge amount of creative talent emerging from Birmingham universities and the B-Hive scheme plays a pivotal part in helping the region retain that talent. Birmingham’s thriving creative sector regularly works with high profile brand names so their involvement in B-Hive highlights the importance of this scheme to the industry. We were very impressed with the calibre of the entries this year and are looking forward to welcoming the overall marketing winner, Ellie Rance to Marketing Birmingham for her four week placement, where she will become involved in the Taste of Birmingham food festival.”

Ollie Purdom, Director at Pitch Consultants said:
“Students graduating during this economic climate have a difficult job getting their foot on the career ladder which is why we wanted to give them a helping hand. We understand how important work experience is in such a highly competitive job market but believe the experience they will gain through B-Hive will stand them in good step for future employment. In fact, several of the winners from last years scheme actually gained employment as a direct result of participating in B-Hive.”


For more information about the B-Hive scheme and this year’s winners please visit www.bhive-creative.com