In a bid to encourage its students to innovate and think out of the box, SRMS IBS recently organized ‘Marketing Warfare’ event for the PGDM Batch of 2017-19. The aim of this event was to formulate innovative strategies as game plan to achieve marketing objectives within the framework of a given product / service. Eight teams comprising of 10 students each put their thinking caps on and gave the competition their best shot.
The event focussed on FMCG sector and allotted top brands like Amul, Parle, Red Bull, Mondelez, Maggie, Bournvita, Colgate, and Pepsi to each team. They were asked to carry out in-campus promotions through charts, advertisement banners, brochures, leaflets, and other unique sales techniques. It was interesting to see the teams making the most out of digital media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to take their message across.
Team Maggi had divided responsibilities to stay on top of things. Pooja, Divya, Paridhi Manish, Piyush, Akash, Khalid, Himalaya, Shweta and Amit took care of various tasks including making banners to social media presence. The team showed fantastic coordination and claimed, “We learned to apply classroom concepts into practical world. We also learned how to appeal to customers by making our products attractive.”
Team Bournvita comprised of Prajjwal, Anisha, Kanika, Pranshu, Deepa, Shariq, Anant, Tanmoy, Akansha and Vaishnavi. Their unique strategy was to create prototypes of three products from the brand. They also focused on green marketng and used paper for packaging instead of plastic. A campaign called ‘Energy Hai’ and a unique mascot ensured that their brand made its mark with the audience. A mascot was also at the heart of Team Parle campaign, which made an impression with their sleek packaging. The team of Durgesh, Saloni, Manish Mishra, Kaushal, Mahjabi, Divya, Payal, Sumit, Sailesh and Majid deserved kudos for their strong effort.
According to Team Mondelez, being a part of Marketing Warfare was a huge learning experience as they handled stalls and helped each other through critical times. Members who had learned valuable lessons of team spirit through the exercise included Ashwini, Anirudh, Shivangee, Mayank, Jyoti, Varsha, Kanha, Dhrubajyoti, and Karishma. The team also made a lasting impact through their final presentation.
Adarsh, Ravi, Shivani Gupta, Himanshu, Richa, Yamini, Tanmay, Akash, Sanjeev and Sejal were a part of Team Pepsi, which took on the mantle of doing justice to the universally popular brand. They relied on catchy taglines and games on the launch day, to engage the audience. The team believes their innovative ideas, green marketing strategies and efforts that led to cost cutting differentiated them from the other teams in the competition.
Team Amul had to battle ill health and overcome initial differences to come up with a campaign that would represent the popular brand. Team members Priyanka, Divya, Kaustubh, Siddharth, Aakriti, Kousain, Subham, Deepti, Varun and Pankaj left no stone unturned with product packaging, logo, mascot, pricing and promotion strategy to drive their message home.
Team Colgate stressed that they delved into the 5 Ps of marketing and were grateful to have the practical experience under their belt. They started with Market survey, which built their confidence. Team members Niharika, Rohit, Yash, Sharul, Prashant, Subham, Ojasvi, Poonam and Abhishek then unleashed their creativity to come up with a campaign that hit all the right notes with the “consumers”.
It wasn’t surprising that Team Red Bull was high on energy and besides the regular marketing means, they also held a “PES – power, energy and stamina Contest” to attract attention of the target audience. Arm wrestling, balloon filling, and bursting were the fun three rounds of the contest, which definitely caught everyone’s imagination. And that’s why team members Rachit, Vibhanshu, Amit, Vishnu, Shilvy, Areeba, Yashasvi, Nidhesh and Pritee deserved full marks for their creativity.
Thus Marketing Warfare showcased impressive ideas and execution from different teams. They learned practical applications of classroom theories, realized the importance of teamwork and had a lot of fun in the process as well.
