IIM Indore's presents its Annual Marketing Fair "UtsAha" 2009

[Kalpana Heliya]

Utsaha 2009, IIM Indore's annual marketing fest, kicked off with a lot of fanfare. The event has gone rural this time around, with an aim to unravel and decipher the consumer's mindset.

UtsAha!, the annual marketing fair of IIM Indore is all set to leave its mark on the minds of people in and around Indore from 1st to 3rd of November 2009. In a very short span of time, Utsaha has become a major episode in the B-school event calendar. It is the brainchild of the marketing club of IIM Indore, Mercur-I and aims to bridge the gap between a marketer’s plans and consumer’s mind to provide comprehensive solutions to marketers across different industries.

Having seen huge success in its past avatar within the Indore City, Utsaha is going rural this year. It would be an integral part of the quintessential rural mela - The Kartik Purnima Mela. The mela takes place in the villages of Janapaw Kuti and Badgonda in the Malwa belt at a short distance from IIM Indore. Utsaha has all the components of a mela; be it food, shopping, games, events, fun and that little bit extra, as it doubles up as a carnival milieu to conduct comprehensive consumer market research. The USP of Utsaha is the platform it provides for a reliable and systematic surrogate market research through interactive and engaging games, as it generates unbiased and accurate responses from a specified segment of the consumers. Consumers’ responses and actions are tracked and valuable behavioural data collected is used for subsequent analysis, giving any participating company an opportunity to get unique insight into their behaviour. The students of IIM Indore provide the end to end professional execution of the research. There are also loads of games with thousands of assured gifts and lots of entertainment with attractive prizes and gifts on offer.

The students of IIM Indore are very excited about the event as it gives them an opportunity to learn with a lot of enjoyment. It provides them an ideal platform for experiential learning by involving all the major stakeholders- corporate organisations, consumers and academia. The students organise simple yet attractive games to pull them towards the mela stalls. These events cater to the diverse crowd of all ages. The key is to make consumers feel involved, thus enabling enthusiastic participation which will help them to gauge their response towards the products of the companies for whom the research is being carried out. The data collected during these events will be woven together to form marketing research reports for the sponsoring companies. A large number of projects have been offered by big names in the industry which corroborates the fact that Utsaha, is in fact a win-win collaboration between the students and the industry.

Apart from this, Utsaha also aims to improve the lives of the people living in the rural areas. For this, there will some activities by the social sensitivity cell of IIM Indore, Pragat-I. The objective will be to identify the problems faced by the rural people and take corrective measures. This will be done with the aid of both the industry and the government. The companies too have something to gain from it, as these projects will serve as CSR initiatives for them.

The event started today, and people have been streaming in. The major part of the event would be conducted over the next couple of days. The IIM Indore family invites one and all to experience the joy.... Utsaha!



Brought to you by-
IIM Indore Media Cell in association with Managementparadise.com


Shall add the photographs of Utsah very soon.

[Kalpana Heliya]

The kartik purnima mela at Janapaw Kuti saw a sight never seen like before. Halfway up the hill to the temple, a series of brightly coloured stalls have been set up with banners and posters all over them and a number of enthusiastic young people inviting all the temple goers to come in for some games and a whole lot of fun! These are the students of IIM Indore holding their annual marketing fest Utsaha!

Utsaha 2009 is the first ever marketing research fest to be held in India which focuses only on rural consumers. The objective of Utsaha is to collect insights about the consumer buying behaviour of rural India mainly focussed on the products of companies partnering with Utsaha in this avatar.

Companies like Hindustan Unilever, Cavinkare, Reckitt Benckiser, Shakti Pumps, Cadbury’s and Kimberly Clark are all seeking valuable information from Utsaha. The students have all designed innovative and interactive games to observe the buying behaviour pattern of consumers. Some stalls had women throwing balls through hoops with the name of their favourite washing powder brand written over it, while other stalls had children guessing the value of chocolates in a packet. Everyone who entered the stalls was a winner and inevitably left the stalls smiling. On looking closely, it was seen that beyond the fun and games there was serious social work at play too.

The Kimberly Clark project team researching diaper usage was holding a free health check up clinic for all the children and women at the venue. Armed with a doctor, scales, measuring tape, etc they were handing out prescriptions to the people and educating them about the importance of good health and hygiene.

The Mela started at 6 am and very soon within a short span of time the place was packed with people. Men, women and children covered the whole ground and interacted with pleasure and ease with the IIM Indore. The students found the people forthcoming, warm, hospitable and friendly. Very soon with music playing, some women started dancing to the lilting tunes soon joined step to step by the students.

The fuel of enthusiasm and fun from the IIM Indore student community was evident throughout the event. The learning from the interaction with rural consumers would stand all the students in good stead for their marketing and sales careers ahead! The final day of the mela would be held in the Badgonda grounds, with the entire festivities of Utsaha moving there!

Managementparadise.com team truly appreciates IIM Indore initiatives for Rural Marketing thereby presenting companies the opportunities at the Bottom of the Pyramid.


Exclusive reports brought to you by-
IIM Media Cell in association with Managementparadise.com

[Kalpana Heliya]

Today it was the turn of the people of Badgonda village to be touched by Utsaha, the marketing fest of IIM Indore which has focussed on rural India this time. A first ever of its kind of fest, Utsaha aims to provide corporate with insights on the consumer buying behaviour patterns prevalent in rural India. Till last year, Utsaha was centred around the city of Indore but this year, with various corporate partners seeking data about rural India, Utsaha has been centred around the Kartik Purnima Mela held in the villages of Janapaw Kuti and Badgonda.

Today was the third and final day of Utsaha. While the first two days, Utsaha was held in the village of Janapaw Kuti, today the venue was shifted to Badgonda. The mela at Badgonda has been taking place for more than a hundred years now. With over 20,000 people coming to the mela, it was the quintessential platform for the students of IIM Indore to take a sneak peak into the minds of rural india. The main objective of the students was to get insights about how products like Chik Shampoo, Wheel Washing Powder, Breeze Soap, Shakti Pumps, Indica Hair Colour, Cadburys Shots, Huggies Diapers and Mortein Coils are viewed by the rural consumers. These brands come from big corporate houses like HUL, Cavinkare, Reckitt Benckiser, Cadburys, etc. who are targeting the rural consumer to expand their customer base.

It was by sheer coincidence that Rohit A, Utsaha Coordinator, came across a blog by My Dev Kumar Vasudevan, who had been visiting this mela for close to two decades. With his help, Utsaha was able to go completely rural this year and achieve immense success.

The students set up innovative games and interactive events through which the consumer behaviour was observed and noted down. The abundant footfalls ensured that ample data was gathered helping the students to draw significant insights. This was solely possible due to the abounding energy of the students which was matched easily by the people visiting the mela. The students and the villagers mingled easily which made the whole experience a memorable one for all the people.

The Sarpanch, Mr. Sundar Patel, was heard calling it “Anokha Utsaha” and felt that “it was great to see that a national level institute like IIM to come down to the masses and rural India with such an innovative initiative.” He also wished the students a “bright future” with the hope that they shall “continue such initiatives for rural India once they start working in different corporate sectors”.

Today Utsaha comes to a close. All that remains is the analysis of the abundant data collected and the conclusions withdrawn from them. But what shall remain with the students for a very long time is the rich experience they gathered through this event. For many of them who have lived in cities all their lives, it was an eye opening experience and the skills they developed in the last few days would undoubtedly stand them in good stead for their sales and marketing careers ahead.


Reported by-
IIM Indore Media Cell in association with Managementparadise.com


Dear Members this event closes today.. it was a great effort by the students of IIM Indore.. Kindly share your views on it.. come forth and acknowledge this wonderful initiative- Kalpana Heliya