Students to run salons at IIMA today

The otherwise quiet campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) saw a lot of activity on Saturday as its flagship annual marketing festival- Insight- 2012 kicked off. While the enthusiasm was palpable, the crowd of students seemed thinner this time.

Silver jubilee celebration of the fest started with a formal inaugural ceremony. As part of the celebration, global chief operating officer of Timex, Kapil Kapoor, an alumnus of  IIMA's PGP batch of 87 and first secretary of the event, flew in from Hong Kong. Prof Srikant Gokhale and Suman Srivastava too participated in the inaugural ceremony.  

The first day saw participation by experts. Founder and chief executive officer of Market Search Sundara Rajan, founding director of the Third Eye Jasmeet Srivastava and others shared their insight about marketing research, challenges in creation of brand etc.
 
The highlight of the fest on the second day would be the presence of the marketing team of popular television show Satyamev Jayate. The team is expected to share their strategy in marketing of the successful telly show.

Secretary of the event Rushiraj Patel said three teams will participate in a competition titled ‘Reality Bites’. The challenge in this contest for the three teams will be to run a private chain of salons in Ahmedabad.

“Each team will take over the functioning of one of the three branches and aim at maximising the salon’s profits by luring customers. Their task would involve increasing the sales of their respective branch by following a well-defined marketing strategy designed by them.

At the end of the day, they will be judged on the basis of the profits they make and how many new customers they are able to bring,” he said. The winner would be awarded cash prize of Rs1 lakh.