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A Curtain Raiser Market Research, that tool of all marketing executives looking for answers, conjures up images of door-to-door questioning, of hard rather than smart work. Even after these efforts, issues like the sensitization effect of the survey on the audience make the results of the survey suspect. Often, the results of the survey fail to reflect the buying behavior of the consumers. Is there a way out, or is this one of those "process errors" that you live with and provide for? Students and professors of Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow came up with a solution to all these woes in the year 1994. This was in the form of an event they called INDEX (INformation through Disguised EXperimentation). It is a marketing event where the information sought through the questionnaires is disguised in the form of games, which the respondents play. The respondents think they are just participating in some elaborate skit, and they let their guard down in the fun of the moment. The games are designed in such a way that the observers can elicit all the required information just by observing and noting down the behaviour and the responses of the participants. The concept behind this is called Disguised Experimentation. It is a method of obtaining information from the respondents, where both the respondent and the surveyor have immense take-away from the questioning: the respondent has fun and not a feeling of being interrogated, while the researcher gets data that can be safely classified as genuine. This is the tenth year of existence for INDEX. It began as an in-campus event involving staff and faculty families as respondents. In the last three years, it has reached into the heart of Lucknow city, drawing crowds of close to 25,000. This year, through INDEX, IIM Lucknow is providing marketing strategy solutions for HLL, Castrol, Aditya Birla Group, Titan, Cadbury, Pepsi, and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance among others. The event is dubbed SBI INDEX 2004 and is being organized in association with Pepsi. For the first time, INDEX is going online. Starting off with an on-campus pilot, it will culminate in a nationwide launch in the next year. Once this happens, students of IIM Lucknow will have their finger on the pulse of the national consumer and not just of the local one. The on-campus pilot of this initiative is being organized with support for Tata Consultancy Services. In another first this year, INDEX is expanding its scope to include a development sector project for the national NGO CRY as well. It is a unique way for the students to contribute to the society through their skills and knowledge. On 27th and 28th of November, the data collection event that is unique to INDEX will be held in the heart of Lucknow city. Dubbed as the 'fun filled family fest', this fair is wholly managed by the management students and is the only time when they play hosts to the entire town. For more information, about how your company can benefit from INDEX, contact index@iiml.ac.in Contributed by: - |
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