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A Curtain Raiser The Marketing Fair, the brainchild of Dr. (Prof.) Sharad Sarin, Head, Marketing Area, XLRI, Jamshedpur and Indian Marketing guru, was born 25 years ago and is today an accredited market research tool. Widely acknowledged as one of India's and XLRI's most valuable contributions to the field of Marketing, it is now being followed as a model by a number of premier Indian, American and European business schools. In the year of its Silver Jubilee, The Fair is all set to make greater strides. The unique concept of The Fair has been hailed by none other than Marketing & Strategy gurus, Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School of Management, Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School and Dr. Jim Nelson of the Colorado University. Conducted and coordinated every year by MAXI, the Marketing Association of XLRI, under the aegis of Dr. Sarin, The Fair has become one of the most effective "marketing research tools" used by the Industry. The process starts with Multinational Corporates posing research problems to XLRI. This is followed by weeks of data collection through pilot surveys conducted by students and this is analyzed to arrive at the appropriate research methodology. This preparation culminates on the day of The Fair (December 28 this year) with games and events designed as surrogates to elicit unbiased information from consumers regarding their preferences and perceptions. This helps in arriving at possible solutions to the actual research questions. Corporates who have presented problems to The Marketing Fair for study till date include International Giants, the ANZ Group, Bata, Cadbury, Citibank, Coca Cola, GSK, HSBC, ICI, Nestle, Ogilvy & Mather, Procter & Gamble, Philips, Ponds, RCI, Shaw Wallace and UNICEF. Indian Corporates who have actively participated in The Fair include Arvind Mills, Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Bharat Shell, Blowplast, Dabur, GIC, Hindustan Ciba-Geigy, HLL, HMT, HMV, ICICI, Indo-National, ITC, Marico, New India Assurance, SBI, Tata Tea, Titan, Voltas. The companies participating this year are industry majors, ITC, Titan, Franklin Templeton Investments, Colgate Palmolive, Nestle and UTI Bank. In addition, The Fair creates an entertaining and memorable experience for the participants. The consumers, who are residents of Jamshedpur, are attracted by the fun element while giving away their responses and actions which are collected as consumer behaviour information for subsequent analysis using the latest marketing techniques. The exclusivity of The Fair is maintained by having a definite focus every year. Some of the notable focus areas of earlier Fairs include children as consumers, new entrants in the Indian market, Indian women as consumers and niche product consumers. Two successful Fairs focused on the largest yet most neglected segment of the Indian market, Lower Income Group of consumers. Some of the success stories of The Fair include Brooke Bond's highly successful launch of a tea pack in 1996 based on results of The Marketing Fair (it is now an Rs 100 crore brand) and Nestle's rethink of its strategy to launch Iced Tea in India, based on The Fair's results. Dr. Sarin is presently working on extending the relevance of the concept to the Internet. Called the "E-Marketing Fair", it promises providing a platform to analyze issues regarding marketing on the Internet. The Fair thus serves as a forum for the dissemination of knowledge on marketing and enables students to gain meaningful insight into new paradigms in marketing. It is an instrument for those who have a flair for Marketing and would want to go beyond the realm of academics to foray into something more. As part of the 25th Anniversary celebration, on December 28, MAXI felicitates all its past secretaries, who have been instrumental in the evolution of The Marketing Fair to what it is today. Contributed by - |
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