Five digital marketing students at the University of Ulster have won an industry prize after working as consultants at a local document shredding company.

The ShredBank prize for best consultancy group was awarded to BSc Marketing students Mark Adamson, Tom McCready, Connor McCloy, Christopher McConville and Stewart McCormack.

Digital marketing is a new module at the Ulster Business School designed to unravel the key marketing issues within the digital world and to equip students with relevant digital marketing knowledge and how to apply it.

Module designer, Professor Mark Durkin, said: “Many companies are grasping at digital and social media opportunities without due consideration as to how such opportunities fit with their business model.

“Trying to force-fit digital into a business model without proper consideration and management will undoubtedly lead to a wasteful allocation of valuable resources. The consultancy task for the 113 students was to act as consultancy teams and assess the appropriateness of digital media solutions for the case company. ”

Supporting the roll out of the new module is local entrepreneur Philip Bain, Director and Co-Owner of ShredBank, a leading on-site document shredding company based in Carryduff.

Philip is working with Professor Durkin in helping the students apply their learning to a live digital case study.He said: “Having graduated from Ulster in the late 1990s it is fantastic to go back into the lecture hall to share my experiences since, and to challenge and shape what the graduates of the future are learning. Knowledge of Digital Marketing is critical in my view.”