Young Marketers Steal the Spotlight at ‘Best Idea Wins’ Marketing Pitch Competition
Team Pulse of Silliman University bagged the top prize at BrandCon PH 2025’s first marketing pitch challenge for students.
Ten finalists competed for top honors at the ‘Best Idea Wins’ Marketing Pitch Competition at The Business Manual’s first-ever BrandCon PH 2025.
With the theme “Building Brands That Move the Nation Forward,” the much-awaited conference gathered over 400 practitioners, industry icons, and students who shared insights and exchanged ideas on how to build world-class brands that celebrate and uplift Filipino culture and identity.
Culminating the event was the marketing pitch competition, where students from across the country presented innovative marketing ideas that blended creativity with technology. Ten teams emerged as finalists from a pool of 43 video entries. These finalists were invited to pitch live in front of a panel of judges during BrandCon PH 2025.
Pitch Competition Winners
Team Pulse from Siliman University emerged as the champion for their concept AI-Powered Pulse—a digital application which will make ads more targeted and personalizedthrough three main features:
Mood-based ads– Ads will be posted based on the perceived mood or sentiment at that time, which could depend on the time of day or the trending sentiment at a particular time.
Eco-stamps- Eco-nudges appear in shopping carts or app notifications, rewarding greener choices.
Story catcher integration– Consumer stories will be transformed into powerful campaigns that are shared in real time.
Team Pulse’s presenter, Lia Nicole Angelika Bungabong, also the Salutatorian of the recently concluded 33rd Agora Youth Awards—led the winning campaign pitch with the support of her teammates Cytherea Bacli, Jon Kyle Tan, Alexandre Generoso, and Mia Go.
Team Clutch!, representing University of the Philippines – Manila, won 1st Runner-Up with Cancel Checker, an app designed to help brands fight cancel culture by flagging items in their ads and posts that may cause problems and controversy. The app, conceptualized by students Brian Joshua Salvacion, Carlo James Reyes, and Matt Daniel Andrew Lisan, promises to be a 3-in-1 tool that will help marketers move faster and remain culturally sensitive. Its features include a social listening tool, a cancel risk scorer which assesses the vulnerability level of a certain planned post or ad, and a problem solver which suggests alternative strategies and phrasings to avoid potential backlash.
Team Gen-Z Marketers of Cavite State University bagged the 2nd Runner-Up title with Project Map, an application that promises to help advertisers translate their ads into local dialects and make them more relatable to the target market.
According to Samantha Isabelle Suyat, who presented for Team Gen-Z Marketers, there are 170 languages and dialects used in the Philippines but only two (English and Filipino) that dominate the local marketing scene in terms of usage. The app can be utilized by service-oriented brands such as Gcash to help users better understand instructions and make the brand even more relatable to its market.
Samantha’s teammates are Camille Bolina, Czareeanne Michelle Camelon, Jenny Rose Fernandez, and Donabel Lamarca.
Presenters were given only two minutes to pitch their idea for an innovative, AI-driven marketing campaign.
Other Finalists
Aside from the three winners, seven finalists from different colleges and universities made it to the roster and had an opportunity to present their AI-powered concepts.
Team A&A – Ateneo de Manila University
Project Name: Past Forward
An app to help Gen-X marketers better navigate artificial intelligence for their marketing campaigns
JMAPERS – Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa
Project Name: alingtrends.ai
A marketing aid for MSMEs to help them create effective marketing campaigns, track trending content, and provide advertising ideas through the hep of AI
JMagaling – St. Louis College of San Fernando, La Union
Project Name: AI-Powered Eco-Personalization
An app that will vet a product’s sustainability claims to help consumers buy better.
Market Cruisers – Lyceum of the Philippines University, Cavite
Project Name: Project Map
An AI tool to help startups prepare their product pitch
Compawnions – Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela
Project Name: Nutripaws
An app that personalizes meal plans and pet food for fur babies
Synergix – Mindanao State University
Project Name: AI Kultura
An app that transforms amateur video uploads into professional-grade advertisements through AI
Team Crystal, DLSU Manila
Project Name: Crystal AI
An app that onsolidates and personalizes gathered news and information, depending on an individual’s needs and preferences.
Awards and Prizes
As the overall Champion, Team Pulse will receive Php500,000 worth of media values from The Business Manual, while Team Clutch (1st runner-up), and Gen-Z Marketers (2nd runner-up), will get Php 300,000 and Php 200,000 in media values, respectively.
The winners were selected by a panel of judges composed of Miko David, President of Consumer Data Analytics Firm David & Golyat; Merlee Jayme, Chairmom, CCO and Founder of Jayme HQ and The Misfits Camp; Leah Ayeng, Director for Youth and Academe of the Philippine Marketing Association and CEO of Prestige Quality Paper Products; Dennis Perez, Head of Marketing for the Philippines and Marketing Transformation Lead for Greater Asia at Unilever; and AGC Power Holdings’ Archie Carrasco.
The innovative concepts in this year’s competition impressively displayed the Filipino youth’s tech-savviness and creativity, setting the bar for the next battle.
BrandCon PH 2025 is presented by The Business Manual, in partnership with the Philippine Marketing Association and the Philippine Junior Marketing Association, with support from the Philippine Young Entrepreneur Association and Philippine Retail Association.
The Business Manual thanks its sponsors: Ploom, Nordic Spirit, Baken, and GCash; student partner organizations University of the Philippines AdCore, Far Eastern University Institute of Accounts, Business, and Finance Student Council, San Beda Junior Marketing Association, Adamson Junior Marketing Association, National University Junior Marketing Association, Far Eastern University Junior Marketing Association, Far Eastern University-Diliman Junior Marketing Association, and Ateneo Junior Marketing Association; media partners Edge TV Philippines, Village Pipol, and Red Cloud Interactive; beverage partner PICKUP Coffee, and hotel partner Hotel 101.
Read More:
Building Brands, Moving the Nation: Highlights from BrandCon PH 2025
