Markezine Jan- Feb Issue!

Contents From the Editors’ Desk ....................................................................................... 3

Key trends to watch out for in 2015 .................................................................... 4

Branding in public sector..................................................................................... 5

Branded Governments for Social Causes ............................................................. 7

Prosumer and the future of customer service ..................................................... 9

Positioning of luxury brands during recession ................................................... 11

Hitting the right mark with twitter ................................................................... 13

Marketing in 140 characters: “It’s all about Brevity” ........................................ 14

Marketing on Twitter: Role of Content Marketing ............................................ 16

Royal baby tweet of Nissan .............................................................................. 18

Events: Marketing World Cup 2014 .................................................................. 20

January-February 2015

MARKEZINE

From The Editors’ Desk Dear Readers, Greetings from Club MarkUp, the marketing club of IMT Ghaziabad.

We are proud to launch the eighteenth issue of Markezine focusing on several key trends in the industry today. They are ‘Branding in Public Sector’, ‘Changing demographics in Marketing’ and ‘Twitter Marketing’. This launch also comes at a time of the successful completion of the flagship marketing event of IMT Ghaziabad, Marketing World Cup 2014 (MWC-14) The trends in this issue have been selected as the theme for this January-February issue to appraise the marketing fraternity of key changes and developments occurring in the marketing world today.

These issues have the capability to re-define the advertising and marketing world in 2015. ‘Branding in Public Sector’ will play a crucial role with ‘Make in India’ coming to the forefront. With the advent of the ecommerce revolution, the marketers are finding it increasingly difficult to cope up with the changing demographics. Also, the battleground has shifted from the television and billboards to social media where a tweet in 140 characters can decide the fate of a product or company.

Vysakh Madhavan 1st year,

Happy Reading!

PGDM (Marketing)

Thanks & Regards, Vysakh Madhavan

IMT, Ghaziabad

Disclaimer: The views and opinions published in this magazine herein are those of the authors and Club Markup bears no responsibility for the same

Co-Editors: Anirudh & Rahul Poster Design: Atul & Brij Write to us markup.imt@gmail.com Follow us on:

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January-February 2015

Branded Governments With public sector companies becoming more streamlined and in tune with the private enterprises, Governments are taking a look at branding the public sector enterprises. Branding not only helps the Government attract the best talent but also helps to retain them and put across the word to public more efficiently

Changing Demographics The traditional models used to study consumer behavior are increasing getting obsolete and newer methods are being adopted to cope up with these challenges. Marketers have to now constantly innovate to stay ahead of the game.

Marketing in 140 Characters With our fast paced lives and a large chunk of our day being spent on the move , the brand wars are shifting online and onto the social media platforms. Marketers have play within those 140 characters and find their niche.

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January-February 2015

Branding in Public Sector The public sector in both developing and industrialized nations is taking steps to respond to the demands of a rapidly changing society. Many state governments, federal agencies and government organizations are using branding to achieve a whole range of objectives. Branding for private businesses is fairly common and popular, and is easy to recognize. Branding for governments is relatively uncommon and unorthodox. The public sector is subject to remarkably similar forces like commercial businesses and competition from other players. Branding has the potential to offer several long term benefits central to the long term sustainability of public institutions.

A brand is “a name, term, design or other feature that distinguishes one seller's product from those of others”. Brands are composed of various distinctive elements like the name, the logo, the tagline, etc. For government organizations, the key motivation behind branding is the difficulty that they face in attracting and retaining key talent. Reasons for this include low compensation, negative image associated with the public sector and a lack of human resource management. The other important motivation includes breakdown of markets and globalization.

A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a paper titled “Public Service as an employer of choice”.

Samyaraj Das PGP, Batch 2014-16, IIM Bangalore

This policy brief lays out how 11 member countries are facing difficulty in recruiting and retaining civil servants. Branding promises several benefits: it helps the organization respond more effectively to the demands of its stakeholders and helps reinforce a positive image of the organization or agency.

A good brand can also be a very effective way to manage public relations. According to Andrew Prince, director of publications in the UK, “I think good branding is good marketing and communications.

And what you need out of the public sector is good communication,”. Branding can also be of great use in building consensus within the organization about its motives and values. This, leads to a more motivated workforce and clarity within the organization about its values. For example, a police department in a town can position itself as an employer that provides a work environment full of challenging tasks and modern HR policies. The city of Fort Collins, Colorado, United States holds testimony to the benefits of building a strong employer brand.

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January-February 2015

Job listings for various positions in the city administration include descriptions with easy access to more-detailed listings for each position. The application process is exclusively online. To create a strong brand, an important starting point is to streamline the entire job application process for the organization. With the rising influence of Twitter and Facebook, governments have a wide range of options to make themselves visible.

Most candidates want to work with an employer who believes in their skills and invests in developing them. Thousands of talented professionals

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are forced to look for jobs elsewhere, being discouraged by the bureaucracy of the recruitment process. Another important area of focus can be job announcements- to retain and attract quality talent, government agencies may showcase job advertisements as a unique product offering.

Many government officials are uncomfortable with the idea of branding, and they reason that the taxpayer’s money should not be used to create and sustain a brand. However, the difference between an ordinary organization and an extraordinary one is the collective ability of the workforce, Further, there are government subsidized programs that bring tremendous value to the communities that they are targeted to. In such cases, branding is a necessity. A similar argument is applicable in cases where government and state services compete with each other, or when government-run infrastructure derives significant revenue. The key for public sector brands is to have a large number of simple sub-brands.

To ensure the success of branding efforts, leaders need to understand their target audience. The more focused a branding campaign is and the more defined its target segment, the more chances that it will be successful.

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January-February 2015

Branded Governments for Social Causes Branding is an attempt to harness, generate, influence and control a set of associations that a person or a group of people make with a product, service, company or organization, thereby helping the business to perform better. In simple terms, branding enhances the image of the organization. It is about building distinctive relationships with all the stakeholders. Branding is a term which is generally associated with the private sector rather than the public.

But these days, the term ‘Government Branding’ is creating a lot of buzz in the business world. So what is government branding? And how is it different from branding in the private sector? Branding in private sector is more commercially oriented and is focused on getting people to buy their respective products.

However, government branding is more social in nature by getting people to buy into a ‘change in behavior’ such as a ‘Don’t drink and drive’ or a ‘No Smoking’ campaign.

Branding in public sector has a dominance of political objectives and focuses on the needs of the citizens while in private sector there is dominance of economic objectives with focus on increasing consumer base and satisfaction. The notion that marketing tools, methods, and approaches could be used to promote

Swati Sinha MBA, HRM 2014-16, XIMB social goods developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Some people argue that as most of the government enterprises have a monopolistic control over the market, there is little use of branding in the public sector which is a misconception. With the business environment becoming dynamic and competition between the organizations increasing, it’s time for the public sector to venture into branding. It’s time for the government to build relationships with its citizens and establish good communications with them. Government branding revolves around trust. Politics, bureaucracy, and corruption have crippled the government machinery because of which the public has lost confidence in public sector enterprises. There have been multiple instances when the organizational culture of these enterprises have also been questioned.

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Branding would help the public sector enterprises in creating visibility and in positioning themselves.

Branding can help public sector in building a strong image with properly aligned vision, objectives and culture. This would help them in establishing a connect with its citizens thereby improving their image. It would help them in strategic planning in terms of resources, employees, market etc.

Public sector needs to build customer confidence. It is said that employees are the first customers of an organization and are also the brand builders. Thus, it’s important for public sector to draw its attention towards employer branding. It is an HR marketing strategy wherein the uniqueness of the company is communicated to the current and prospective employees to attract best talent. Employer branding defines and delivers the employment experience. It communicates the culture of the organization to the employees. Employer branding would also help them in attracting the best and the brightest. In public sector, branding is more difficult and complex as compared to that in private sector. This is due to a complex reporting and bureaucratic structure and decision making in the public sector.

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For branding, a 360 degree alignment of all the activities is required. Apart from these, commitment from senior management (deputy ministers etc.), strong implementation and monitoring policy is also required. This becomes difficult in such a chaotic situation. In public sector, the organizations are too preoccupied with internal politics to focus on what the public wants or expects from them. This is in complete contrast to the private sector, where even a negative Facebook post or tweet draws the attention of the companies. Public sector is often run by a network of stakeholder organizations or partners. There should be clarity while communicating about the brand to the customers to prevent confusion.

Government has to realize that doing things the old way won’t work anymore. They can’t remain aloof to internet, mobile and other technologies now. Public sector needs to use more social media channels for engaging with the citizens. Government branding is the need of the hour today.

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January-February 2015

Prosumer and the future of customer service When Alvin Toffler (1980), in his book ‘The Third Wave’ quoted the term ‘Prosumer’, he could have never imagined how the advent of social media would fuel the wide acceptance of his term in the strategy meetings of marketers. The term “prosumer” isn’t a new one. Its been around the marketing world for years, but in today’s world of the social web, it has taken on a new importance that business leaders and marketers can’t ignore. It is changing the way customer service is being looked upon with the transformation of the term ‘prosumer’ from meaning “professional consumer” to meaning “product and brand advocate.” Rather than simply consuming products, people are becoming the voices of those products and significantly impacting the success or failure of companies, products, and brands, particularly through their involvement online. It has become necessary to serve them better by streamlining the efforts around the new customer service technologies, concepts and trends.

Because of their complex lifestyle, which combines a demanding workload and an active family life, prosumers are eager adopters of Web 2.0 products and services—a convergence of process innovation, global marketplaces, and advanced technolo-

Abhinav Kishore Batch 2014-16 IIFT, Kolkata

Kanwardeep Singh Batch 2014-16 IIFT, Kolkata

gies that fundamentally changes the way consumers buy, retailers sell, and products are brought to market. The shift towards re-architecting the consumer experience is the cornerstone of delivering a prosumer relationship and getting the basics right is the vital first step. To enable an enterprisewide view of interaction points, companies will need to develop new approaches to virtual interaction management capabilities that consider the rising rates of technology “interconnectedness”.

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While these basics apply regardless of customer type, for prosumers it is even more critical.

The other key part of delivering the prosumer experience is establishing a core platform that enables digital prosumer engagement and insightdriven decisions.

American Express in its service study found that consumers felt great about a good customer service which triggered the same cerebral reaction as feeling loved. As prosumers become involved in the customization of products, they themselves become part of the production process. But the fundamentals of great service remains the same. It's about the feeling of being recognized, listened to, valued and cared for.

Prosumers are the online influencers that business leaders and marketers must not just identify, but also acknowledge, respect and develop relationships with in order to make sure that their products and brands thrive.

KEY TRENDS:  Alternatives: By providing an alternative, companies can remove the risk associated with outright purchase of the new or unfamiliar. Also providing access to an alternative or backup product which overcomes limitations in the original serves the prosumers right. EE Festival Power Bar is a portable minicharger for cellphones.

Festival-goers who purchased the GBP 20 device prior to the event were 10

January-February 2015

able to trade in depleted bars at the official EE recharge tent, where it was replaced with another, fully-charged device. 

Partnerships: Right partnerships help in identifying and addressing the common pain points of consumers. BMW partnered with car rental service Sixt to offer i3 owners a 20% discount when hiring a BMW car through Sixt.

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Virtual Assistance: Providing webcam-enabled face-to-face interaction with customer service representatives as and when consumers need.

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Amazon’s Fire Phones come pre-loaded with the Mayday button, a one-tap application that instantly allows the user a webcam-enabled face time with customer services representative.

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Deliver Extra: Volvo demonstrated the Roam Delivery mobile app which allows customers to use their vehicle as a delivery location.

Drivers can opt to have shopping or groceries delivered to their car when ordering online.

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January-February 2015

Positioning of a luxury brand during recession For luxury brands, it is not always the product or Sai Prashanth R the service that is sold to the consumer, but the brand itself. So creating and maintaining a unique PGP, position in the minds of the consumers is essential. Luxury brands, like cars, are high involvement Batch 2014-16, products. Also, the cost of first time discomfort is IIM Bangalore high because of their high prices. During a recession, many luxury brands succumb to the dip in their sales because of the “postponement of consumption” by many consumers. This creates a There is a contrasting example for the argument pressure for managers to offer less-expensive put forth previously. The luxury car manufacturer products or discounts.

Mercedes launched less expensive hatchback It can be seen from the past examples that models A-class and B-class in the late 90s and it this creates negative perceptions among consum- was thought that it could damage the reputation ers. Launching a less-expensive version might of Mercedes. make a brand look desperate which will gradually But it has been 20 years and the company degrade its equity in the long run. One classic exhas sold more than a million units. It has also reample is the case of a luxury car-maker Packard – cently launched a sedan model named CLA focusa leading brand in the 1920s. The mistake they ing on the younger aspirational customers. Its admade was to dilute their brand image to improve vertisements clearly depict the shift in focus tothe sales in the short run. This changed the perwards the youth segment. The target is the young ception of Packard from luxury to “just another aspirational customer because the brands can try mid-segment car”. up-selling their products at a later point in time.

Based on the above example, the ideal The new trend found among marketers is creating thing for the luxury companies would be to stay this kind of an “affordable luxury” or the democput where it is and not over-react, because the ratization of luxury i.e., bringing luxury to mass luxury quotient is what took the brand to the affluent customers. Mercedes calls this concept heights it is in today. With the changing trends, PopLux (abbreviated for popular & luxury). The now the question is more of - Is it possible for an answer is the changing consumer preferences iconic luxury brand to maintain its equity while with the changing environment (increase in discatering to aspirational, younger and digital-savvy posable incomes and lifestyle change). users in the current scenario?

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Marketers increasingly focus on this segment of customers (aspirational) and try to make products that are within their reach. Therefore, it is necessary for the luxury brands to tread on the thin line of maintaining the quality even while losing its exclusivity by reaching a larger segment.

The conflict is avoided by making even the new products high in quality with no compromise. And they can develop marketing communications in such a way that instead of expressing oneself with the expression of pride and showing off one’s achievement, one can show that one has made a smart choice (which Lexus used for its fleet). This would reinforce the existing users and also would encourage the new ones.

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January-February 2015

Another example of a luxury car-maker diversifying into many product categories is Ferrari. Although the company has extended its product lines to computers and apparels, it maintains its core image of exclusivity and expensive cars by avoiding the interference between the images among various products.

Finally, from the examples it can be seen that there are no hard-and-fast rules in marketing which can be applied across products and companies. It is entirely subjective and depends on the brand ideology (whether it wants to extend in the first case?), and the brands need to recognize this.

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January-February 2015

Hitting the right mark with Twitter!!

In a world full of proverbs like ‘Actions speak Paul Gladstone Boon, louder than words’ or ‘A picture is worth a thouPGP 2014-16, sand words’, brevity of content and hitting the right mark with the right medium cannot be em- GLIM, Chennai phasized enough. Today with sinking attention spans and mobile lifestyle, marketers have a great challenge of connecting the already connected. through social media With social media being witness to multi- have gained signifiple innovations, engaging people through people, cant trust all over the facilitating many to many interactions is what world. grabs the attention of people. So much so that Another way telling a story in 140 characters is quite the art of making an impact on the customers is through today and reading an entire newspaper article is techniques of guerrilla marketing, where the cusof little interest to people. So how do we sell a tomers meet with the messaging where they least news story to the audience today, where sparexpect it to be. For example in order to deliver kling colours and eye-candy are in abundance crethe message of Save Water campaign on World ating a consuming echo of nonchalance? Solution Water Day 2013 shopping malls in Brazil used imlies in being creative and precise in conveying a agery of dry desert land on their wash basins in message with impact which is what ‘Delo.ua’ a Toilets. news website in Ukraine has come up with an innovative way of conveying business news with a Twitter itself has come out as a medium slogan, “news briefly”. for unique ways of experimental storytelling in a set of 140 characters, accompanied by images Not just being brief but also creating new and videos. This has created a medium of creative excitement is very important to create the wowfreedom which helps firm reach the audience effect. Most of the conventional media has been without any mediation. This provides a flexibility abused so much that whatever effect they have of bringing to life some of the beloved mascots had till now is already maxed-out and the figures telling the story each day as it happens creating are already southbound as suggested by Nielsen dialogues with the audience and maintain enGlobal trust advertising survey report, which regagement levels. cently showed, there has been a steady decline of around 20-30% in the trust consumers have on Bottom-line is in order to make an impact conventional media such as TV ads, magazines marketers today have to be more creative, and whereas online media and word-of-mouth hit the mark in the blink of an eye.

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January-February 2015

Marketing in 140 Characters: “It’s all about Brevity”

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.” - George Burns

Sai Prashanth R

If only Mr. Burns would have been a marketer, enticing millions and perhaps billion with seconds in your pocket, seems to be a daunting task. You show a TV ad, they change the channel; you print a newspaper ad, they turn the page; but what has always been a successful mantra for the marketing world is ‘short and sweet (maybe not always!)’.

IIM Bangalore

And of course where better to start than with Amul. Amul for years has been designing one liner print ads that are becoming more of a comic strip in the newspapers. Be it politics, entertainment or sports nothing falls short of getting ‘Amuled’ every once in a while. But what they are subtly doing is imprinting into the minds of the reader a brand name that is now seldom unrecognized.

Now let us for an instance consider, OREO’s recent print ad. All the customer needs to do is to put his gaze on this ad once. The message is dis-

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-played loud and clear and is etched into to the memory within seconds and mind you, words are not even a part of it. The point is, no matter how strong or lengthy the underlying message is, it is entirely possible, if not easy, to demonstrate it in the array of a few simple words.

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With print ads getting shorter it was inevitable that the same transformation happens in the TV marketing too. According to a recent report released by video ad company Vdopia, more and more firms are opting the 10 second ads nowadays rather than 20 and 30 second ads. The effectiveness of the former are twice the latters’.

Using the proper marketing mix has become the necessity of every brand. And while having the right mix matters, being to the point is an asset. While being brief, the one thing that comes to the rescue of marketers is using the brand’s inherent features or in the other words the brand recall feature. Hitting the right notes engages the customer and keeps them so, until the message culminates. Apart from the aforementioned another nuance to be targeted is ‘current affairs’.

January-February 2015

The idea is that such events are fresh in the minds of consumers and their eyes might cling onto the message if these events are somehow blend into them. There is no denying that short ads may it be TV or newspapers save the firm a lot of money, which is not just a by-product, it is a catalyst in itself. With the cricket world cup another important decision hanging over every marketers’ head is slotting ads during the matches. In an interview.. Sunil Kataria of Godrej Consumer Products stated that cost benefit analysis and judging the marketing ROI is going to be a prime influence. The world cup is just one of the tons of such instances where marketers need to be direct, effective and most of all brief, especially when life in this generation is almost in entirety an expeditious event.

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January-February 2015

Marketing on Twitter: Role of Content Marketing Millennial consumers are becoming adept in selectively ignoring both traditional and online advertising. Added on with the short attention span of the generation, it becomes bleak for the marketers to actually market their product. That is where content marketing comes into play.

Content marketing is the art of communicating with customers and prospects without direct selling. Instead of pitching products or services, information is delivered that makes buyer more intelligent. The essence of this strategy is the belief that if businesses deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward businesses with loyalty.

Content marketing as defined by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” Breaking up the definition into components,  Content marketing is a strategic approach which requires a plan  It involves both the creation and the distribution of content  At the bare minimum level, the content a marketer creates must be relevant & valuable  Content marketing is delivered consistently so as to attract and retain consumers  Marketer must have a clearly defined audience in mind for everything they create  The eventual goal of content marketing like any other marketing strategy is to drive profitable customer action 16

Jeevananthan K PGP 1, BIM Trichy

According to a research by CMI, a vast majority of Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers now use content marketing as part of a strategic marketing approach. B2B marketers now spend an average of 28% of their total marketing budgets on content marketing. However, the most effective marketers allocate an average of 37%. The top social media platforms used for content marketing by B2B marketers is LinkedIn (94%), followed by Twitter (88%), Facebook (84%), YouTube (72%) and Google+ (64%).

Though askew for B2B, 66% of business-to -consumer (B2C) marketers rank e-newsletters as the most effective content marketing tactic, even more effective than in-person meetings (63%), social media content (58%) and blogs (54%), with key goals such as: Brand awareness, Lead generation, Engagement, Sales, Lead nurturing, Customer retention and loyalty, customer evangelism and Up-selling and cross-selling.

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Some of the advantages of content marketing Marketers can see customers engage and interact with business, if the business is not getting the expected results, content marketing allows marketers to see this straight away and change track without any major issues like investment of printing, ad space and production costs.  Location-based content marketing will provide huge ROI for brick-and-mortar businesses, the use of geo-aware marketing in a campaign launched earlier last year by Meguiar’s (an auto-care products company), showing relevant ads in areas that showed a high volume of car and car-accessory buyers, the company was able to achieve a $1.31 ROI and a 118% increase in sales in exposed markets.  Mobile content marketing will separate winners from the rest, while the majority of marketers now know the importance of having mobile-friendly content, many are still lagging when it comes to actually carrying out their mobile strategy.  Calculating content marketing ROI will spawn

January-February 2015

new SAAS software and companies, as the industry is seeing increased ROI when it comes to content marketing, new content creation companies are emerging to gain steam to challenge key players like Text Broker. Content Runner and Content Equals Money are two such emerging companies, which match writers to companies looking for high-quality content.

Content marketing second only to internet advertising in accelerated growth, it constantly amazes in its size, scope and adaptability. Content marketing in itself can’t sustain the change of customer expectations and behaviors. It should be used in line with other marketing techniques such as Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Marketing to drive the consistent growth in attracting and retaining consumers. Regardless of what type of marketing tactics a marketer uses, marketing is impossible without great content.

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January-February 2015

The Royal Baby Tweet of Nissan On 8th Sept 2014, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate announced that they were expecting a second baby. This wonderful news was brilliantly woven into an advertising masterpiece by Nissan. Within 7 minutes of the announcement, Nissan tweeted, “It could be triplets and there would still be enough room for the Queen! #XTrail #SevenSeats #RoyalBaby�. The tweet was followed by an advertisement which had crowns on each seat to signify the extra room for the royal family. This tactical marketing strategy followed by Nissan was sufficient to capture enough attention from people both in UK and abroad.

Nissan was the first brand to tactically advertise when the news of Royal Baby no. 2 broke out. There were subsequent tweets from Tesco, Post Office News, and Coral all celebrating the news of the expected younger brother to Prince George.

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Siddhant Chhabra PGDM 2014-16, IMT Ghaziabad

In marketing, timing is everything. It is difficult to believe that the advertisement was created within 7 minutes of the royal announcement.

Rumours of second baby started floating around in July, 2014. Nissan understood how brands capitalized on the announcement of he first baby. Launching the tailored advertisement at the right time gave Nissan free search hits and headlines in leading newspapers dailies. Tactical marketing is not new to us. It is concerned with the moment, the timing of the campaign when it is launched.

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It focuses on the medium in which the message is delivered as against the actual content of the message. Print, online interactive advertising, product placement in movies or TV serials are all varied examples of tactical marketing. Strategic marketing is concerned with the content of the marketing strategy and message. What is being said, who it is targeting, and how it is constructed are all different aspects of strategic marketing.

In 2013, the birth of Prince George also led to many tactical advertisements within 24 hours from Coca – Cola, Warburton's and Ryan Air. The budget airline Ryan Air rebranded itself as Ryanheir.

Coming back to Nissan, some critics appraised the company for capturing the news and marketing the product. They were able to create a buzz and got everyone’s attention in the marketing world. Were the customers attracted to car? Was there a significant surge in bookings of X - Trail? Well, no such data has been revealed by Nissan as of now.

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that X- trail is an extremely spacious SUV. It has enough room for the growing family.

There is no doubt Nissan was quick in its response but has the campaign reaped dividends is yet to be seen. In retrospect, given the fact Nissan had time to think about the campaign, they could have done a lot more. In fact, the added crowns in the interior representation of the car seems like no more than a day’s work. What stunned the world was the timing of the ad rather than the ad itself. The “7 minutes” timing had captured the world’s attention. What Nissan’s does next when baby is born in April will also be watched by marketers across the globe. Marketers don’t leave any opportunity to capitalize on good news which can be taken to their advantage and to gather attention. The brand has a good amount of time to plan a campaign for the time post the royal baby’s birth. Now that standard has been set, critics expect something bigger and better from Nissan.

There are two the thumb rules to tactical ads: It should be quick and it should be good. Failing to capture the right moment can lead to mockery of the brand. Given the fact that you are preparing an ad to be launched in the near future, it should be designed to connect people’s lives and do justice to the image of the brand. With twitter and fast internet, it has become a game of speed and all about being the first one to launch.

Nissan was able to convey the message

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January-February 2015

Our Events: Marketing World Cup 2014 At Club MarkUp we have always tried to

es for the participants, we have 8 different com-

provide the best platform for the development

petitions that reflect problems encountered in

and growth of future marketers. To that end, the

the real world. Teams of 3-8 members competed

Marketing World Cup was established to let par-

in a series of case study based competitions that

ticipants showcase their talents at a national lev-

pushed their marketing knowledge to the limits.

el. Every year we have witnessed unprecedented

This grueling 48 hour event had the teams

participation from across the b-school fraternity

fighting for the ultimate prize, the Marketing

and this year was no exception.

World Cup itself.

On the 22nd and 23rd of November 2014, MarkUp conducted the Marketing World Cup 2014.

The

flagship

from almost teams

across all bschools

in

India. From the IIMs, XLRI, FMS, MDI, NMIMS, SIBM and many more, participants were eager to be a part

of this marketing extravaganza.

This event is unique for a number of reasons, chief among them being the format of the world cup. To provide a diverse array of challeng

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the events were

els

saw

participation

200

events, along with special online events. Each of

judged by pan-

marketing event

There were 5 core events and 2 on the spot

of

judges

from the industry. They included industry specialists, top executives

and

esteemed faculty

from

IMT

Ghaziabad itself. This balance of judges helped each event get a well-rounded assessment and the participants were thrilled with the level of insight that they received from these judges.

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

Kurien of the Desert: A one of a kind event,

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January-February 2015

that

explored

the

BrandWidth: Sponsored by Air cel, this

possibility

event highlighting the challenges of the

of introducing camel milk in India and the

changing telecom sector pushed the contest-

challenges.

ants to the test their knowledge of telecom

Eintrag Zu Luxus: A fascinating study

industry

into the world of automobiles and the chal-







SmartSell: This event was sponsored by

lenges of collaboration between two big

ADCOM, a new up and coming mobile

names in the auto industry

handset maker. It required contestants to

The Loyal Edge: Sponsor ed by Cinépolis,

come up with ways to cement ADCOM's

this special event required the participants to

place within the pantheon of great smart

come up with innovative ways to improve

phone makers

their loyalty program, Club Cinépolis.

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January-February 2015

Our Events: Along with the above mentioned events, we also

After two grueling days of intense completion, we

had two on the spot events that were given to the

finally had a winner, with Team Ekalavya of IMT

participants on the day of the event. These were

Ghaziabad taking home the coveted trophy.

challenging not only due to the content but also

This year we were proud to have ADCOM

due to the strict time constraints. The main objec-

as our title sponsor. MWC'14 also boasts of event

tive of these events were to test how the partici-

partners like Aircel, Cinepolis and Fortis, gifting

pants could use their core marketing skills, with a

partners ebay, Digiflip from Flipkart, Giftxoxo,

very limited supply of resources.

online partners ‘The Banyan Tee’, Line, Youth





Heal-thy: A special case study developed in

Connect refreshment partners Udipi Krishna hotel,

collaboration with Fortis healthcare gave the

Bisleri Urzza, knowledge partners Jigsaw Acade-

participants a glimpse into the world of

my, lemon ideas and category partners PFC,

healthcare marketing

NTPC and South Indian bank.

Basket of Joy: In today’s ever gr owing e-

As the sun set on another successful Mar-

commerce sector, the interesting opportunities

keting World Cup, the teams and spectators alike

in online gifting were explored. Sponsored by

were left not only with the joy of winning, but also

Giftxoxo.

with a better understanding of the complex world

To close this marketing fest, we had a special

of marketing. From the intricacies of selling to the

event for the teams. Line of Fire was a chance for

unpredictability of customer behavior, marketing

the teams to test their PR and selling skills in this

is a mighty ocean and we are but standing on the

interactive event conducted in the Amphitheatre.

shores of limitless possibilities.

This fun and sometimes heated contest had the teams debating on a range of topics from sports, business to politics.

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