In Nicole Agba’s month-long placement with Toyota, she got a chance to work with the marketing team on the upcoming launch of the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai.  “I was tasked with working out how to present technology and data about the vehicle to companies who will be buying the car and also to everyday consumers,” she explains. Nicole set about designing a mobile app for the car to provide more information on hydrogen fuel cell technology using videos and images. The app would also offer more details about the car and its history, as well as locations of refuelling stations. To present the app, her proposal was to have an envelope with a tablet device in the car’s glovebox and an electronic business card attached to it. “I was given full scope to do whatever I wanted to do, and there’s potential for Toyota to use it as a product eventually.” Along with her Mirai project, Nicole researched other Toyota marketing schemes and created her own ideas, which she then presented to the head of marketing at Toyota. There was also time for a trip to the firm’s manufacturing plant in Derby. “I was told that no one has ever described the factory as ‘cool’ before, but I was like a kid at Christmas,” she says. Find out more about her experiences in the video here. Nicole’s penultimate placement is with McLaren, where she worked on colour and material design. If you’d like to win an internship at Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, McLaren, Peugeot, Skoda and Toyota, plus £9000, submit an original idea or innovation that would improve the UK automotive business in one of four categories – mobility, connectivity, sustainability or customer experience. Entries close at midnight, 28th August |
