Note from the Editors’ Desk

Big shout out to all!!

We at the Marketing and Advertising Club, Vinod

Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur, are
proud to present MADazine, our annual
marketing magazine.

MADazine is a B-School magazine with a

difference. We bring to you insights from the
corporate czars, opinions from the who's who of
the marketing world as well as fresh ideas in
form of student articles.

We present interesting interviews from names

like, McDonalds, IBM, Uninor and Idhasoft. They
have opened a small but significant window into
their lives as key players in their organization's
success. We also have an expert section, where
Madazine Team: we bring in opinions of well established
professionals and academicians from their area
Editors-in-chief: of proficiency. In magazine we also have the
Anshul Bhatia unsullied opinions of the in house student body
Kanika Puri which also proves to be an interesting read.
Editorial Team:
We sincerely thank our dean and faculty who
Ann Thomas
Ravinder Pal Dhillon have always encouraged students to think out of
Sourabh Agarwal the box and embark upon activities beyond the
Neha Harit curriculum.

Design Team: A wholly student initiative, MADazine is our

Ambuj Agarwal attempt to be heard.

Special Thanks to: Sincerely

Aksha Middya Editors
(École Normale
Supérieure, Paris )
 Message from the Dean
Dr. Arabinda Tripathy

Vinod Gupta School of Management is an arena of ever-changing business paradigms

and dynamic learning. Our Master of Business Administration (MBA) strikes a balance
between theory and practice of management. At VGSoM, we uphold the belief that true
learning comes only from involvement and hands on experience with the real world of
business.

Here, the students are mentored and encouraged to uphold the highest tradition of
excellence that IIT Kharagpur enjoys. The pursuit of academic excellence is
complemented by the activities of various management clubs and events that include
relevant and responsible initiatives managed by budding student managers.

The Marketing and Advertising (MAD) Club has been pro-active in taking up such
ventures persistently. It is run and managed by the students but the events garner a lot of
support from the institute as the faculty here too believes that students should be able to
think and look beyond the books and classroom lectures to find out what they need.
Discovering what they need to and shaping the resources to their own requirements,
MAD club promotes those skills and attitude that we want our students to imbibe during
an MBA course.

The relevance of a Marketing club in a B-school environment is very high and evident
because at the end of the day, however good a product or an idea may be; it takes a
proper marketing effort to make any benefit out of it. Marketing is in some way or the other
attached to every other field in business – production, finance, strategy management etc.
Those connections and interlinks are what upcoming managers find from looking out to
the world of industry rather than from their theoretical knowledge base.

I hope that MAD club will raise the bar for its activities in the coming days and I wish all
success for any new initiative that carries forward our mission of creating excellence in
the field of Management.
 Message from the Faculty
Coordinator, MAD
Prof. Biplab Datta

The Marketing and Advertising Club was one among the first clubs that was established
in Vinod Gupta school of Management. From those days, the number of activities as well
as the number of participants has always been on the rise for MAD Club. MAD Club has
improved the industry interface and the visibility of VGSoM with its activities

Marketing a Marketing Club is not an easy task - but the students have taken it outside the
confines of VGSoM, garnering participation and collaboration from other business
schools, industry experts and eminent academicians. I am happy to see the enthusiasm
and initiative taken by the students in this regard. For students interested in pursuing their
careers in the field of Marketing or Advertising, MAD club provides an excellent
opportunity to get a feel of the current business scenario and trends.

The Club organises several events, both online and on campus, such as marketing
quizzes, case study competitions, advertising workshops, guest lectures by marketing
directors of well-known companies and also carries out activities like publishing this
magazine. This Magazine is an attempt to look beyond the obvious in the arena of
Marketing and Advertisement. I wish the members of the club all the very best in all their
ventures so that they can achieve a deeper and better understanding of managing
brands and businesses.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management
IIT Kharagpur

The Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), IIT Kharagpur, was established
in 1993, and was the first management science faculty set up within the IIT system. With a
generous contribution from one of its illustrious alumni Mr. Vinod Gupta, founder lnfocom,
USA and a liberal support from the Government of India, IIT Kharagpur envisioned to
produce management leaders by offering unique programmes blending both
management and technology. This original and pioneering concept has now been
vindicated by the setting up of management schools/departments in all IITs except one. In
a short span of about 16 years, VGSoM has already become one of the best management
institutes of the country. Over the years the school has moved beyond the sphere of
regular MBA programme. The school regularly organises management seminars and
workshops, management development programmes and training of management
teachers from other B-schools. VGSOM has a unique advantage of being a part of IIT
Kharagpur which is rated as the best technical institute in India. The school continuously
interacts with the institute's 32 other departments and centres through various
programmes and faculty research. The industry interaction of the institute is the best in
India with a total of 850 projects worth about Rs.300 crore are being presently handled by
the institute.
The first proud association we have once we are in here is with the 'Brand IIT'. And
from there on, we live, breather, eat, wear, walk and talk brands, marketing, retailing,
advertisements etc etc etc!

This is the Marketing and Advertising Club of VGSoM, and as the name suggests,
we're a bunch of people who are MADly passionate about perfecting their skills in the
field of marketing management.

The MAD club is not just an internal affair of the VGSoM students. It is an interactive
platform for the students, faculty, a host of companies and the marketing experts out
there. It creates an even mix of in-house and inter B-school events related to new
concepts, strategies, time tested ideas, brand awareness, advertisements and so on.
“Marketing takes days to learn, and a lifetime to master.” That is why MAD club gets in
touch with the masters of the art while organising guest lectures and workshops on
marketing. The topics covered in such interactive sessions ranges from 'How an
advertisement is born' taken by the giants in advertising - JWT to 'Customer Value
Management' at TATA.

MADison Avenue, the flagship event of the MAD club, is getting bigger and better
every year. With participation from B-schools across the length and breadth of the
country, MADison Avenue brings case studies, marketing challenges, quizzes,
workshops, guest lectures and much more on a single stage. As they say, marketing is
not an event, but a process. And so when MAD Club organises JADE, the quizzing
event, the team name is a brand; and taglines are not just answers to the questions
but the identities of your special brand.

If business is all about two functions - marketing and innovation, MAD club at VGSoM
is about looking for innovative ways of marketing. The driving forces of MAD are a few
inquisitive and creative minds that are not just into accepting the given; they learn,
analyse, improve, change and question...for they believe there is no end to
Marketing.
 Table of Contents

Experts Speak

Click 7

Influence of Consumers' Exploratory Tendencies on their 10

Proneness to Deals

Social Media: Marketing and Balance 13

Marketing your Band 15

Interviews

Mr. Arvind Singhal, McDonalds 17

Ms Susan Jain, IBM 20

Mr. Akash Das, Uninor 23

Mr. Alok Pathak, Idhasoft 29

Jade 30

Saamanjasya 32

MADison Avenue 35

Shraddha 38

Student Articles

A Tryst with Time 39

Its time to build my brand, its time to advertise 41

Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Indian Market 44

Telecom Marketing Strategy 47

Web Analytics Tools: Know thy visitors 49

Ambush Marketing 51
 Click!
from Merely Online to going Viral with a Vengeance

Prithwis Mukerjee, PhD.

Professor at Vinod Gupta
School of Management

Prof. Prithwis Mukherjee is an engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and has gone on to
pursue management from University of Texas – Dallas. He had 18 years of experience in the software sector.
He took up teaching professionally in the year 2008 and teaches various technology related subjects to
students in management schools. He is an enthusiastic blogger and likes to be in touch with the
advancements in the technological world. His multi dimensional personality is best described as “Imagineer”
as he likes to call it.

Print media is fast losing out to its online
cousin -- at least that is the story in the more
developed societies. Actually, the word
developed has a rather embarrassing
connotation to the extent that it implies that
we in the non-developed world are
somehow barbaric, but if we can swallow
our pride on this, then it is a fact there is a
gulf of difference between the markets of
North America, Western Europe and some
pockets in the Far East on one hand the rest
of the world on the other. What is this
difference? First, per capita income and
buying power and what is most important
for the purpose of this article, broadband
penetration.
Broadband penetration translates into a
change in lifestyle -- eCommerce, net
banking, social media
and of course in the way
we consume information,
and it is this last change
that is cause of much
grief in the upper
echelons of media
ownership. Print media is
feeling the heat as it loses
market share to online
media.
What does it mean in terms of advertising?
Before we answer that question, let me ask
you what is the business that Google is in?
You may say search, you may say online
video -- through YouTube, you may say
cloud computing, but if you are really
perceptive you would realise that it is a pure
play advertising company. In fact if you cut
to the chase, then all media companies are
advertising companies -- their main
business is to sell ads. Or for that matter to
sell advertising space to mainline
businesses, and the content they carry is
simply a way to increase the value of the
space that they sell. The COST of an ad in
college magazine is the same as that in
Economic Times but the PRICE that ET can
charge for the same ad is far more than what
a college magazine can charge, simply
because it is surrounded by information that
a far larger number of people would be
interested in. The hook is
the same but because the
bait is better you catch
more fish and so you are
willing to pay more for the
same hook. In case of
Google, they sell ad
space packaged inside
their search engine or
YouTube videos and
since these are very
popular, their ads can be
priced higher. ( In reality, Google's ad

7
service has some pretty advanced features,
but that may not be very relevant to our
discussion here )
An extension of the same logic allows us to
see that putting an ad in an online journal is
more likely to be effective than an
equivalent ad in a print journal and this logic
is apparently correct because Google ( and
other online ad servers ) seem to be
growing in strength at the cost of the
traditional media.
Case closed. QED. Or is it?
Let me ask you a question : I presume you
are an active user of the web but tell me how
many times have you actually clicked on an
ad on a web page? I will not answer on your
behalf, but in my case it is very, very rare.
When we search the web, we are more
interested in reading the page we looked
up, or watching the movie we wanted, who
bothers about clicking on that pesky ad?
Perhaps it is different in the more
"developed" societies where the change in
lifestyle is more substantial and where
many more things are being done through
the online route, but back home, here in
India -- and by extension, in areas that are
geographically or demographically similar -
- clicking on an ad is an exception rather
than the rule. Someday, oh surely someday,
we shall overcome this indifference and
click on an ad just as we have started
visiting Pizza Hut or Cafe Coffee Day, even
though the food or beverage they serve is
not substantially better than what is
available in the friendly neighbourhood
dhaba! But until then, is there a way to make
people click on a link?
There is! Social media sites like Orkut,
Facebook or the more eclectic sites like
Slashdot and Digg! When we visit
Facebook or Slashdot we are actively
looking for sites to click on because they
have been referred to us by our friends!
When I visit Slashdot -- and I am the geeky
8
kind that loves difficult to find information on
an assortment of eclectic topics -- I actually
click on the link that my friends, even
anonymous "friends" have recommended
simply because I have developed a level of
trust in their judgment. It is more likely than
not that the sites that I am pointed to would
be of interest to me. In a more mundane
sense, so is the case with Facebook. If
someone I know recommends a book, or a
video or an article in Facebook, I am more
likely than not to go and check it out.
So, unlike the ad of Google AdSense that
are routinely displayed next to a article in an
online journal, the strike rate -- or click-
through-rate as it is referred to -- is far higher
in social media and this is where we hit the
sweet spot in online marketing. And what
makes it even better, is not only do I click on
link, if I like it I recommend it to my friends
and the chain continues -- and you have the
genesis of viral marketing.
But can viral marketing be used as a
substitute for direct, in your face advertising
of traditional products from say FMCG
products or white goods? My social media
friends may be intrigued by my references to
o_bcNayontara, my wife's musical band, or
c9llthe Road to pSingularity, my explanation
of the cosmos or may even click on a link
that tells them to save the last 1411 tigers
left in India but would they forgive me if I ask
them to visit a Sunsilk ad? or a DoCoMo
c o m m e r c i a l ? U n l i k e l y.
That then is the real challenge to viral
marketing. How to make it palatable and not
an imposition on my "friendship"? The trick
is -- or should be -- to blend the ad into an
ambient environment that is fundamentally
useful or interesting. Google does it by
blending the ad into its search results. Some
movie directors do this by blending lifestyle
products into the lifestyle that is being
portrayed by the actor -- 007 and the Aston
Martin, but on the whole, it is easier said
than done.
Viral marketing is nice. It gets you the clicks
that you would never have got in a
traditional online ad but the real difficulty is
to use this powerful medium to advertise
traditional products like detergents or
services like insurance. How can one
achieve a harmonious blend of soft social
media advertising and the hard ads that
actually pull in the big money? The answer,
as in the case of all such difficult questions,
is that it is not easy. There is no silver bullet.
One approach could be to build niche social
networks -- not around hard products or
services, but around broad based themes.
For example around health insurance or
prepaid telephone tariffs or around
personal grooming or even around
consumer grievance redressal. Such
networks, if managed honestly and without
overt bias may provide the platform on
which viral marketing techniques might
come of age and grow of out of amateur
adolescence and into commercial
adulthood.
Physical creation of such networks is not
difficult. Services like lxhzNing and
v0m5SocialGo will allow you to create such
networks very easily -- and with all the usual
bells and whistles like friends, blogs,
9
forums, videos, chat, mail and what not --
but the next challenge is to enroll a critical
mass of people to participate in the network.
Alternatively, one can work on building sub-
networks withing the more traditional public
networks like Facebook where flexibility is
less but the reach is far higher -- it already
has millions of members! Fan Pages and
Causes within Facebook could be looked
upon as such sub networks, but the difficulty
is that the major public networks are not very
tolerant of blatant advertising -- unless of
course they are designated as ads and paid
for. But in that case, the viral effect is lost
and it becomes just another online ad.
Net-net, the potential of viral marketing on
social media is huge but making it really
work calls for ingenuity, experimentation
and of course hard work. The field is so new
that there is very little hard theory, only
anecdotal folklore to guide the intrepid
explorer and the best way to learn about it is
to jump in and try out various options till you
get a feel of how the whole thing works.
On the web, there are many things that are
free but unfortunately, a lunch certainly is
not one of them.
 Influence of Consumers'
E x p l o r a t o r y Te n d e n c i e s
on their Proneness to
Deals
Biplab Datta Surajit Ghosh Dastidar
Asst.Professor, Research Scholar,
VGSoM VGSoM
Prof. Biplab Datta is a silver medalist graduate from IIT Kharagpur. He has received ISO 9000 Lead Auditor
Certificate from DNV, UK. Prof. Datta has done his PhD from IIT Delhi. He has more than fifteen years of
teaching experience. His areas of expertise include Marketing Management, Service Quality Management,
Customer Relationship Management, Leadership and Team Work.
Surajit Ghosh Dastidar
Has sumbitted thesis at VGSOM, IIT-KGP and is presently working with EIILM, Kolkata as a faculty member.
Has been awarded AICTE National Doctoral Fellowship. Other qualifications include masters in science and
business management and mass communication. Has worked as consultant with Bengal and Jharkhand
Government projects. has experience in developing documentary films. Has a few publications at
international peer reviewed journals.

It has been widely accepted that people
tend to prefer a satisfactory intermediate
level of stimulation which is termed as
optimum stimulation level (OSL). People
with low levels of stimulation engage in an
exploration of the environment to gain
stimulation in order to attain their OSL, or
vice versa. This tendency of exploration is
termed exploratory tendency (ET) in
psychology literature.
While conducting research on consumer
behaviour in the 1980s, P. S. Raju stated
that common consumer actions like brand
switching, exploration through shopping;
searching for information on products and
communicating with others about their
purchases can be regarded as
manifestations of consumers' ET.
Customers switch brands while seeking
variety in their purchases. They tend to take
risks while exploring products and their
features during shopping. Similarly, their
tendency to gather information by talking
with others about their purchases is a way
of satisfying their curiosity. Thus, variety
seeking, risk taking and curiosity
satisfaction are three forms of consumers'
ET.
It is intuitive to believe that customers get
attracted to deals because of the monetary
incentives provided by deals. However, it
has been often observed that customers
tend to redeem deals offering insignificant
price benefits or they switch brands
because of a deal which they do not redeem
ultimately. In order to explain such paradox,
Raju reasoned that customers could
become prone to deals offered by marketers
as deals offered them an opportunity to seek
variety, take risks and/or satisfy their
curiosity required to attain their OSL.
Accordingly, customers with high OSL
would have higher levels of ET and would be
more prone to be attracted to and redeem
deals offered on products and services. This
provides an opportunity for marketing
researchers as they can now study how
different types of deals were related to the
satisfaction of customers' exploratory
tendencies during the purchase of different
products or product categories.
Our Research
In order to explore this domain, we

10
undertook regression studies on the data types of deals as the deals allowed them to
collected for 410 consumer-respondents in achieve their high levels of stimulation
West Bengal to see how each of the three (OSL) and help them switch brands.
forms of ET affected customers' proneness Similarly, risk taking and innovative people
to redeem eight types of deals widely tend to satisfy their ET and achieve their
offered in the Indian marketplace on the OSL by purchasing innovative, new
purchase of shampoo (an FMCG) and products. However, the link between
refrigerator, (a consumer durable) as consumers' curiosity satisfying tendencies
shampoo and refrigerator were two of the and their deal proneness was not
three products on which 89% of the deals statistically significant.
have been offered in the past. The eight
types of deals considered in our study were
Coupon, Sales, Rupees-off, Buy-one- Managerial implications
get-one-free, Free gift with purchase,
Shelf display, Rebate/Refund and Our study threw up some learning for
Contest. marketing professionals. It was found that
consumers with high levels of brand
We measured customers' ET using the switching tendencies, i.e., brand switchers,
questionnaire reported by Raju in 1980. were prone to shelf displayed, free gift
Similarly we adapted the questionnaires offers, buy-one-get-one-free offers, rupees-
developed by Lichenstien and Burton in off offers and coupons in that order while
their 1997 studies to measure consumers' they were deciding on the purchase of
proneness to the eight types of deals. As shampoo. Similarly, brand switchers were
posited, it was found that the three forms of likely to switch to a brand of refrigerator that
consumers' exploratory tendencies was well displayed, or had a rupees-off
positively affected their proneness to eight offer, free gift offer, buy-one-get-one-free
types of deals in varying degrees. The offer, or rebate/refund offer in that order.
results implied that people like brand-
switchers, who have high levels of ET (i.e. Risk takers or innovative consumers, on the
risk taking, variety seeking and curiosity other hand, were most likely to buy a new
satisfying tendencies), are prone to various and/or unknown brand of shampoo that
Product
Shampoo Refrigerator
1. Good shelf display 1. Good shelf display
2. Free gift 2. Rupee off
Brand
switcher 3. Buy one get one free 3. Free gift
4. Rupee off 4. Buy one get one free
5. Coupon 5. Rebate/Refund
Customer 1. Sale
2. Good shelf display 1. Sale
type
3. Contest 2. Rebate/Refund
Risk taker/ 4. Coupon 3. Contest
innovator 5. Rebate/Refund 4. Coupon
6. Free gift 5. Rupee off
7. Rupee off 6. Good shelf display
8. Buy one get one free

Rank of Proneness to Deal Types

11
offered sale, was displayed well on shelf,
offered contest, coupon, rebate/refund, free
gift, rupees-off and buy-one-get-one-free
offer in that order. Similarly, risk takers were
most likely to buy new or unknown brand of
refrigerator that was on sale, offered
rebate/refund, contest, coupon, rupees-off,
or was displayed well, in that order.
12
Above figure illustrates the rank of
proneness to different types of deals by
brand switchers and risk takers for deciding
on the purchase of shampoo and
refrigerator. Marketers can now select the
most effective type of deal to be offered on
the purchase of shampoo and refrigerator to
two different types of customers in West
Bengal, in order to ensure the purchase of
their brand of products. More of such
studies can be carried out in future to enable
marketers to choose the most effective type
of deal to be offered on different types of
products for achieving best sales results.
 Social Media: Marketing
and Balance

Brian Meeks, CEO

Riel Life Productions

Brian Meeks is an economics graduate from the Iowa State University. He has a rich and diverse work
experience ranging from analytics to manufacturing to general management. He has worked in Candelworks,
a Candle manufacturing plant, which produces candles from soyabean oil, an eco friendly company. He then
worked as an analyst with GEICO, an auto insurance company. He then went ahead to start his own company,
Riel Life Productions, which builds and manages spaces in the virtual world of Second life for corporate
clients. He is currently managing the social media for www.preferredvendor.com, an SaaS company which
creates tools for the HR and Recruiting industry.

Social Media is getting more attention than
a pretty girl walking down the street. Most
people are aware of Twitter, Linkedin,
Facebook, YouTube and blogs, but like the
pretty girls, they aren't sure how to
approach them. There is much to know
and understand and seeing all that is out
there requires looking at social media from
many different angles. It can be confusing
to say the least. Only a small percentage of
the people involved in social media, use it
for marketing, or understand how to
approach building a brand with this tool.
Conceptually it is very easy to understand
how having a strong presence in Social
Media will aid one in their marketing efforts.
On the surface the math may look
something like this. If I increase my Twitter
followers from 100 to 1000 I will be reaching
more people and thus have greater success
in my marketing. It is true; you might,
though it is also possible that there will not
be any noticeable difference.
It is like the young man who is standing on a
lonely street hoping to meet a girl, but very
few walk past. He reasons that if he goes to
the dance, where there are lots of pretty
girls, he will surely have a much greater
chance to meet one of them. The problem
for our young Romeo is that if he doesn't talk
to anyone, it doesn't matter how many
people there are, he will still end up lonely.
This is the case in Social Media marketing
as well. It is not enough to simply put up a
page and follow a bunch of people, which
you don't care about, in the hopes that they
will follow you back. They might follow you,
and you might get to 1000 people, but if you
are still not talking to them, they won't hear
you. One needs to build relationships when
working on their social media marketing. It
is important to build real, sincere
relationships, ones where you know and
care about the other people's lives.
There are many channels to use in social
media marketing and it is important to pick
the ones that best fit your needs. If one is
launching a marketing plan to find talent for
a new computer software company, then
building relationships on Linkedin might be
the route to go. A young singer might want
to focus on Twitter and YouTube to get her
music to the ears of a broader audience.
There are tools like GIST (www.gist.com)
and many others which help one manage
multiple social media channels. But it is
important that one always remember that it
is about forming relationships.

13
I personally try to balance two main areas
within my social media marketing, growth
and education. To increase one's social
media presence takes a lot of time and
effort. One should spend time finding
people that have similar interests.
manage social media for my job and I also
have my own personal social media which I
manage. I enjoy woodworking, so I have
begun to blog about my experiences
learning this new hobby. I want to build a
following to my blog, so that I might
monetize it. To do this I have focused on
finding people who are on twitter and enjoy
woodworking. I have also found that some
people like to read my blog, because of my
writing style, so I have started to follow
some creative writers too. I focus on finding
genuine people to follow, and if they follow
me back, that is great, but even if they don't,
I still care about what they have to say. Who
knows they may follow me eventually.
The growth portion requires spending time
looking for new people, sending (DM)
direct messages to people who follow me,
reading the tweets by the people which I
follow, and responding when appropriate.
This takes a lot of time, but it is how one
learns about one's followers and builds
relationships. I have twice as many
followers on Twitter as I did one month ago,
and each night, when I post a link to my daily
blog, I have twice as many people click on
that link. I attribute this to building quality
followers. I also devote some time to
investigating each person who follows me.
If I see someone who, has very few tweets,
rarely tweets, only tweets about what they
are selling, has a ratio of following people
10:1 versus being followed, doesn't have an
avatar picture, or generally looks like a
spammer, then I block them. I don't want to
follow them back, and I don't want them to
be following me and messing up my count.
I want to know how many 'real' followers I
have.
The last bit about checking out followers
could also be counted towards the time I
spend on education. I try to read as many
blogs of the people I follow as possible. This
helps me get to know them. If they have
written a piece which I generally enjoy, I
tweet about it. This lets them know that I
appreciate the work they put into their blog.
I
The quantity of new social media tools and
sites out there is staggering. There are auto
DM programs, which I hate, but I still check
them out. There are programs to help one
manage all their Social Media. I listened to
a web radio cast about Gist last week, and
though I had been a member for some time,
learned about a bunch of new features. I
watch videos of lectures regarding social
media on YouTube. It is impossible to keep
up with everything, but one must spend
some time every day or week, to keep
abreast of the direction social media is
heading. It all changes very quickly.
If one balances their time between building
their network and learning about their
network and social media in general, one
will eventually build a presence which will
improve their marketing efforts. They will
see an increase in their blog traffic, which
will then lead people back to their twitter,
Linkedin, or Facebook fan page. People
with whom you have built relationships will
start to tweet about your blogs to their
followers.
After a while the channels will allow you to
get your message out, interact with
customers, handle complaints, and most
importantly build loyalty to your product or
service, but it takes effort and balance to get
there. Who knows, one day you may be so
successful and rich that you may have the
confidence to go up to the pretty girl and say
'Hi', or maybe just send her a tweet.
14
 Marketing your Band
Online

Sahil Makhija,
Musician,
Mumbai

Sahil Makhija alias 'Demonstealer' has been part of the growing Indian underground metal scene for almost a
decade. He is the vocalist and guitarist of one of India's most well known and popular metal band 'Demonic
Resurrection'. He also fronts India's only Humor Metal band called 'Workshop'. Sahil Makhija also has a solo
project under his own name as well as another where he plays the drums called 'Reptilian Death'. In 2005 he
set up Demonstealer Records, an independent record label set up to promote Indian Extreme metal bands
along with Demonic Studios where he produces and records bands himself. To top it off he also works with
Furtados Music as their artist relations manager and product specialist.

I'm a college drop-out. I never studied
marketing or anything even remotely related
to it. However, I'm told that I'm good at it, and
good enough for someone to ask me to write
this column about it. Whatever I've managed
to do is simply because it was necessary. I
formed my band 'Demonic Resurrection' in
the year 2000 when the Indian indie scene
was starting to pick up. Bands were finally
starting to write original music and some of
them even recording it and making albums
to sell. It's because of this movement that I
felt the need to market my music and my
band.
In the old days, bands relied on TV, print and
radio to market themselves and due to the
astronomical costs of these media, they
were unable to do any of this without the
support of a record label. Fast forward to the
20th century, the Internet has picked up, less
and less people are buying music and the
internet has connected and created a global
music community. It's the perfect platform to
market yourself to people anywhere in the
world, and it doesn't cost you anything (apart
from the net bills, computer costs and
electricity). In and around 2000 there was no
Facebook or Orkut or a gazillion other social
networking sites, there was no myspace and
ReverbNation for music. We had Mp3.com,
where artists could upload their music and
profile and people could listen to it for free.
Back then, ICQ was the instant messenger of
choice and chatting on yahoo chat was a big
deal. One of my strategies in those days was
visiting all the metal chat rooms and
individually messaging people asking them
to check out my band. While a lot of people
cursed me and blocked me, there was a large
number of people that did take the time to
listen to it. Some of them became fans,
otherwise gave me some kind of criticism or
praise, all valuable inputs for a budding band.
Around the same time Gigpad.com, a portal
for Indian bands opened up and they had a
forum where everyone could join and post
stuff. Again, this proved to be a great platform
and it was easy to talk about what's going on
in the scene. To be honest, there was no real
marketing whiz behind getting the band
noticed in the start, it was just straight out

15
down to earth 1 on 1 approach with people
saying 'hey check out my band'. However 5
years down the link the online world has
changed too and we have everything from
Orkut and Facebook to Twitter to Myspace
and ReverbNation, the list of tools and
websites that allow you to promote your
music are endless.
So how do you get started and what do you
do to get noticed? To begin with, every
band needs to do the most obvious thing -
write some music and then spend some
money and get it recorded. Remember, a
band is an investment. So unless you have
written good songs and those good songs
are recorded well, no amount of marketing
in the world can help you. If you have a great
song that is recorded badly, no one will want
to listen to it. If you have a bad song that is
brilliantly recorded, you still will have no one
giving 2 cents for it. Remember, don't get
sucked into loving yourself, be critical and
make sure you create something musical
that is worth people's time and money
because you do want people to come back
to your website. So once you have this bit
ready, you need to get some other stuff in
place. Stuff like good photographs of the
band live and in the studio, a well written
bio, some goodies like wallpapers, artwork
etc. Once you have done all that, target
Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, ReverbNation,
Twitter and Youtube. Set up a band
account, fan pages, profiles, tweet, update,
share. With ReverbNation you pretty much
have everything you need and you can link
your Facebook, Myspace and Twitter
16
accounts to automatically update. Then you
need to start sharing these links with your
friends, get on forums and communities and
paste your link or even better use the
ReverbNation widgets to post actual music
players on blogs etc. Keep recording your
performances and upload videos on
youtube. Remember, the more content you
have the more people view it, also its very
important to keep updating your fans.
Speaking of fans, one of the most important
things is to always take the time and trouble
to talk to your fans online through Facebook
or Myspace and take time to reply to their
emails. As a fan I know if my fav musician
writes back to my email I become an even
bigger fan. Loyal fans can even be enlisted
in your street team which you can create in
Reverbnation. In fact Reverbnation is
probably the best band building website as it
gives you EVERYTHING that you need right
from mailing list functions to online store, to
selling your music etc. So make sure you
are on Reverbnation.
With all this stuff online to help you promote
your music the possibilities are endless, but
more than online marketing it's how you are
in the real world. How hard does your band
work to put up a great gig, how hard do you
guys work to stay back after the show and
sell your merchandise directly to fans, or
how many autographs you sign and how
you spend time and interact with these fans.
If you do all this offline you are pretty sure of
a successful career considering you have
the most important thing in place, which is
'Great Music'.
 Interview: McDonald’s
Mr. Arvind Singhal
Director– Marketing,McDonald's India
(West & South)

Mr. Singhal is the Director– Marketing, McDonald's India (West & South). In this capacity he is responsible for
aligning the functional goals to the overall business objectives to achieve the company's annual targets. His
responsibilities include achieving top line & bottom line numbers for the organization & to lead all marketing
activities and programs nationally. He also aims to develop a world class marketing team to leverage
consumer understanding & fuel growth for the organisation.

Prior to joining McDonald's in May of 2007, Arvind was with Reliance Communications as Marketing Manager
of Reliance Mobile & Reliance Hello and was responsible for providing advertising support at National &
Circle levels. Arvind has also worked for well known brands like Nokia India Pvt. ltd, Marico Industries Ltd,
Asian paints (India) limited & Telco under various capacities.

An alumni of IIT-Mumbai, Arvind also holds a management degree from IIM-Kolkata. Arvind is passionate
about learning & his biggest strength is his integrity towards whatever he aims to achieve. He is always driven
by positive attitude in any sphere of activity - be it academics, sports or extra-curricular activities for which he
has won many awards throughout.

Arvind is an avid reader and spends his leisure time keeping himself abreast with the latest trends in business
around the world. He also likes to read and play golf & tennis.

MAD: Can you tell us about the business
model followed by McDonald's?
AS: Our operations are built on the four
blocks of Quality, Service, Convenience and
Value and everything that we undertake is
focused on delivering these enduring values
to our customers. At McDonald's our primary
focus is on providing our customers with
high quality products, served quickly with a
smile in a clean and pleasant environment at
affordable prices.
The full fledged McDonald's restaurants are
located in heavy footfall areas such as malls
and on high-street locations and offer the
whole range of McDonald's products. A true
family dining destination, McDonald's
restaurants ensure a fun-filled experience
for the entire family.
McDonald's Drive Thru restaurants are
designed to enable busy executives on the
move to grab a quick and convenient meal.
They are an integral part of McDonald's
business plan both in India and
internationally and McDonald's is well
positioned to expand on Drive-Thru locations
in major cities across the country.
McDonald's was the first to introduce this
concept in India.
Petrol Pump Alliance McDonald's has
partnered with Bharat Petroleum and HPCL
to set up McDonald's restaurant at select
stations in cities across the South and West.
McDonald's restaurants have been set up at
select fuel stations under the first of its kind
oil-alliance programme giving an option to
customers to enjoy McDonald's products
when on the move.
The Kiosk format has been leveraged in
metro cities and offers a selection of cold
desserts and beverages only. Kiosks have
been a successful model and contribute
around 2% of total sales. Currently
McDonald's has around 50 stand alone
kiosks and plans to open 20 more this year.

17
The McDelivery concept was launched by
McDonald's first in Asia markets,
McDonald's home delivery service enables
us to be accessible to consumers at home,
offices, colleges and pretty much
everywhere. This format contributes
almost 12% of the sales and it has the
potential to grow to 20% in two years. The
delivery service works through a standard
national toll free number to ensure similar
and easier access for customers.
MAD: What are the supply chain
management issues that McDonald's
faces?
AS: As I mentioned McDonald's is built
upon the foundation of QSC & V (Quality,
Service, Cleanliness & Value) and in order
to deliver QSC&V consistently, one of the
biggest hurdles was the limited availability
of an effective cold chain network in India.
Additionally, there were no processing
facilities as well as limited availability of high
standard raw products.
In order to overcome the same, six years
prior to the opening of its first restaurant, we
worked very closely with Indian farmers and
processing facilities to bring in the latest
technology in farming, processing and cold
chain through technology transfer
arrangement between our international
suppliers and Indian businessmen. Owing
to this foresightedness we don't have any
supply chain related issues at our
restaurants.
MAD: We only see the food services side
of McDonald's. Could you throw some
light upon McDonald's technological
side?
AS: McDonald's has established a scientific
centralised supply and logistics system
starting from the farmer level and the
onwards to the factory, distribution centre
and finally to their restaurants by educating/
training farmers, suppliers, distribution
18
centres and employees in restaurants so
that high quality products matching
international standards can be delivered to
McDonald's customers, resulting in
customer satisfaction at the highest level.
MAD: McDonald's is known for its quality
management. How does McDonald's
ensure this?
AS: The USP of McDonald's is the Quality,
Service, Cleanliness & Value for money
which means we focus on providing our
customers high quality products, served
quickly with a smile, in a clean and pleasant
environment, and at an affordable price.
McDonald's India serves only the highest
quality products. The biggest change that
McDonald's brought about in food
processing in India is introducing the
concept of HACCP and GMP to its supplier's
way back in 1995-96
All McDonald's suppliers adhere to Indian
Government regulations on food, health and
hygiene while continuously
maintaining their own recognized
standards. All McDonald's products are
prepared using the most current state-of-
the-art cooking equipment to ensure
quality and safety. At McDonald's, the
customer always comes first. McDonald's
India provides fast friendly service- the
hallmark of McDonald's that sets its
restaurants apart from others. McDonald's
restaurants provide a clean, comfortable
environment especially suited for families.
McDonald's menu is priced at a value that
the largest segment of the Indian
consumers can afford.
MAD: Cafe Coffee Day has entered into
non food retail and also third party
product retail. What does McDonald's
feel about the same? Do we see
McDonald's following a similar path
soon?
AS: As a policy, we don't comment on other
brands and their strategies.
MAD: McDonald's has come a long way
from being perceived as a
predominantly children's restaurant to a
complete family restaurant. How did
McDonald's achieve this transition in
India?
AS: The starting point was to bring to
'Indian', 'values families and culture',
'comfortable and easy'. In short a 'friendly
place where families would love to e n j o y
and have a special time'. However, the onus
was to consistently build and protect
the brand while persistently committed to
fundamentals of QSC&V ( Q u a l i t y ,
Service, Cleanliness & Value). The first step
for the brand was to establish itself as a
familiar, comfortable place. Taking a cue
from the Indian family values, the year
2000 saw the first ever McDonald's ad aired
in the country.
In addition we divide the target audience
into adults and kids and cater them
accordingly. Our adult marketing would
consist of promoting our core products
19
like McVeggie, McChicken and the Happy
Price Menu of Rs 20 onwards.
For our young patrons we roll out Happy
Meal promotions which would be of a toy
associated with either a movie or series of
cartoon on monthly basis which engage the
kids and create excitement among them.
MAD: Would McDonald's consider
opening a branch within the IIT campus
in Kharagpur?
AS: McDonald's India is a wholly owned
company managed by Indians. In the
Western Region, Hardcastle Restaurants
Private Limited owns and manages
McDonald's restaurants. In the Northern
and Eastern regions, McDonald's
restaurants are owned and managed by
Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private
Limited. The decision to open a restaurant
depends on customer base, the reach of the
supply chain network without hindering the
product quality and feasibility of the venture.
If we perceive a strong business opportunity
in opening a restaurant within the campus
we will definitely work towards it.
(via email)
 Interview: IBM

Ms. Susan Jain, Vice President,

Marketing and Communications, IBM
India/South Asia

Susan is Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Corporate Citizenship for IBM India/South Asia,
where she leads all aspects of these activities across the IBM product and services portfolio.
Before coming to India, Susan was based in Shanghai for 3 years where she served as Director of Strategy
and Marketing for the GTS business in Asia Pacific. Prior to that, she has held a variety of global and geo
marketing positions in IBM GBS, with marketing responsibilities ranging from GBS Americas to global GBS
Service Lines, BTO (MBPS), General Business, PwCC integration, and rollouts of the global CEO, CFO and
CHRO studies.
Since joining IBM in 1998, she has served in a variety of global and geo marketing positions in IBM, most
recently being based in Shanghai for 3 years as Director of Strategy and Marketing for IBM GTS in Asia
Pacific.
Susan joined IBM in 1998 from Geac (formerly Dun & Bradstreet Software/MSA/McCormack & Dodge),
where she was worldwide Director of Marketing with responsibility for Strategic Marketing, Industry
Marketing, Alliance Marketing, Market Intelligence, and PR/Communications for the SmartStream client-
server enterprise software line.

Prior to that, she was co-founder and President of two firms: Cognetics Consulting of Cambridge
Massachusetts, which specializes in micro-economic analysis of entrepreneurialism and job change for
marketing strategy and business forecasting, and Step1 Systems, a consumer software developer based in
Roswell, Georgia. She was a Research Associate at MIT's Program on Neighborhood and Regional
Change, and is author of a number of publications in the fields of entrepreneurialism, small and medium
businesses, real estate demand forecasting and job creation.

Ms. Jain earned her Masters degrees with honors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Transportation Systems and Urban Planning, and Bachelor of Arts with honors/Phi Beta Kappa from
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA. A native of the US state of Oregon, she currently resides
in Bangalore, India.

MAD: Could you give us an idea about the
pre-sales processes at IBM
SJ: We have an end-to-end sales process
that is used globally, flowing from pre-sales
through the sales process and service-after
sales. Marketing interacts with this process
at all stages, and our role in each stage
varies based on the requirement (eg, seller
and channel enablement vs. market
warming vs. demand generation, etc.)
MAD:How does IBM carry out
Segmentation, Targeting and Targeting?
TP?
SJ: Our Marketing Managers work closely
with the business in their role as advisors on
the marketplace to perform market analysis,
including segmentation. They utilize a global
market segment planning toolkit and
processes that are in place within IBM to
support the MM profession. This planning
process draws heavily upon the insights that
come from our market intelligence team
(which we call Market Insights), and is then
used both for business planning and for
demand generation program planning.
Using business analytics as well as staying
close to the business to understand our
clients and their preferences is clearly a
critical underpinning for all of this. Creative
and insightful Marketing Managers who can

20
deliver on both the "art and the science" of
their profession play a key role in taking this
to a strategic level.
MAD: What are the key points in Brand
management for IBM as a B2B
organisation?
SJ: Managing across a very broad portfolio
is both a challenge and an opportunity for
us. And taking into consideration that IT
clients increasingly buy consulting and
solutions, not just 'piece-part' products,
makes this requirement all the more
complex and interesting for us as marketing
professionals. For example, we need to be
able to understand how and when to
position a server, a specific type of
software, or a particular type of service, at
the same time that we need to know when to
do the same for a broad business issue,
such as establishing a world-class supply
chain or IT security capability, or preparing
for IFRS. Along with that comes the
requirement to do that for any number of
client segments, and applying all of the
fundamental principles of good brand
management in doing that.
MAD: How does IBM carry out
prospecting? How does IBM as a service
provider approach a prospective client?
SJ: We go to market through a variety of
routes, including our IBM direct sellers and
our network of business partners. Both are
essential to our success in developing and
maintaining clients relationships in a
dynamic marketplace
MAD: What are the career options in
service marketing/ technology
marketing at IBM?
SJ: We have a full range of career options
available in India, including roles which
work to support our business locally as well
as ones that address needs beyond India.
21
At any point in time, we may have openings
in Marketing Operations, Market Insights,
Market Management (including industry-
and brand-specific), Brand Planning &
Strategy, and Marketing
Communications/Program Management.
Most jobs are located in Bangalore in India,
though we will consider talented candidates
in other locations (and sometimes may
prefer them, based on local client
requirements). Some level of marketing
experience is generally preferred, and
MBAs are also much appreciated.
MAD: What procedures does IBM follow
to carry out Market Research?
SJ: We have a global set of standard
procedures for Market Research that guide
all of our Market Insights professionals and
their internal clients, worldwide. These
include a standard, common data source
that is used for market sizing, as well as
expected procedures for primary and
secondary research. This ensures a high
consistent level of processes and
performance in our Market Research work,
globally and frees us up to focus on what
we've learned since there is a common
expectation for how the work is done.
MAD: How does IBM create synergy
between their technology and the
technology of prospective clients?
SJ: Excellent question! After all, client's
technology decisions can end up looking
rather like cars or houses, since much as
there may be common elements (eg,
everyone has a kitchen or a steering wheel),
in fact the priorities, technology product
decisions, architecture, etc. all will be
customized to varying extent based on their
business need. One of our roles as
technology advisor to our clients is to help
them marry their business priorities to their
current technology, and map out the best
solution for their requirements. It's this set
of challenges that also makes new
technologies such as Cloud so exciting --
not as technologies alone, but because
they may enable forward-thinking clients to
take very new, more effective and efficient
approaches in the future as compared to
how they are operating today.
MAD: What according to you would be
the future of B2B marketing?
SJ: Perhaps I'm biased by my experience,
but I think the future of B2B marketing is
22
among the most exciting anywhere, and
particularly in emerging markets such as
India. Taking the long history of B2C
marketing and applying it in the business-to-
business context isn't exactly a new
thought, but it's still an area where creativity
and breakthrough thinking are required.
Additionally, adjusting for the unique
requirements of Indian firms -- as well as
their clients and relationships globally --
makes this a particularly interesting and
complex marketing discipline.
(via email)
 Interview: Uninor

Mr Akash Das, Executive

Vice President , Uninor,
Kolkata Hub

Akash Das has over 16 years of telecom experience with leading international telecom companies. Prior to
joining Unitech Wireless, Akash, has been with the Telenor group serving in Digi in Malaysia and has been the
Vice President for Mobile Operators in Malaysia. He was responsible for aligning customer's key business
drivers and thus developing and creating profitable business.

Akash served Nokia Siemens Networks ,Prior to which, he was the country Head of EBEN Technologies
GmbH, in Germany. Earlier he held the position of Head of Sales for South East Asia in Siemens AG , based
out of Germany. He has been instrumental in driving business in countries such as Australia, Hong Kong &
Malaysia.

Born in Orissa, Akash moved to Germany to study engineering, after completing his Bachelor of Science
from Municipal College, Rourkela. He completed his Masters in Telecommunications & Engineering from the
Technical University of Berlin. Further , he completed his MBA programmes from Duke University , USA, &
Finance from INSEAD-Singapore.

In his free time, Akash pursues several hobbies including Photography, Reading and Music & loves spending
time with his family. He is also a keen follower of sports such as Golf & Cricket.

MAD: Can you briefly tell us about the
various services that Uninor will offer in
India?
AD: As Uninor continues to strengthen its
launch presence in India, at this phase it
would provide a network based EDGE
platform, real time charging solutions to
handle the demands of prepaid-postpaid,
voice-data-content. It brings with it, the
experience of the Telenor Group, one of the
world's largest and fastest growing
providers of mobile communication
services. We have mobile operations across
Europe and Asia and a significant fixed line,
satellite and broadcast business in the
Nordic region. But we are more than facts
and figures. We say we are built around
people. This thought inspires us and helps
us to develop products and services that
change lives.
Uninor is the brand name for Unitech
Wireless - the joint venture company of
India's second largest diversified real estate
major Unitech Ltd. and the Norway based
world's 6th largest GSM mobile services
provider Telenor Group. With over 150 years
of telecom experience, the Group's 40,000
employees are present in 13 countries
worldwide with 172 million mobile
subscriptions as of Q3 2009. A dominant
position in markets most similar to India,
allows the Telenor Group to deploy existing
competencies in distribution, targeted
offerings, customer lifecycle management
and organization culture in the Indian
context. At present, the Telenor Group has
already invested INR 4113.46 crores through
new shares in the joint venture company to
hold 60.11% share with an agreement to
raise this to INR 6120 crores to increase its
shareholding to 67.25%.

23
The company holds a pan-India UAS
license to offer mobile telephony services in
each of India's 22 circles. It has also
received spectrum to roll out these services
in 21 of the 22 circles. At present, Uninor
services are available in the eight circles of
UP (West), UP (East), Bihar (including
J h a r k h a n d ) , O r i s s a , Ta m i l N a d u ,
Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
As India's second largest diversified real
estate major with over 30 years of presence
across locations nationwide, the Unitech
Group comes into this joint venture as a
partner with decades of consumer facing
experience and understanding of the Indian
market. It is also without doubt the most
recognized and trusted brand among the
new operators awarded licenses to launch
in India. Unitech is also the only Indian
partner, among the new operators, to be
listed on the Indian Stock Exchanges and
infact features in the National Stock
Exchange's bell weather S&P CNX Nifty
Index.
MAD: Uninor is entering an already
saturated market. What kind of strategy
has Uninor designed to create for itself a
niche?
AD: The Telenor Group is one of the largest
mobile operators in Asia with strong and
growing operations in Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and India.
Under the name Uninor, mobile operations
were launched in India in December 2009
with the world's largest Greenfield GSM
launch covering a footprint of 600 million . In
the first month of operations the company
attracted 1.2 million subscribers. Our
success has been built on applying our
global telecoms expertise together with
local market insight to create value for all
segments of society. This strategy has paid
off in very rapid subscriber growth. Growth
comes from truly understanding the needs
of the people to drive relevant change.In the
process, Uninor has taken leadership on
several core issues relevant to the industry -
24
ranging from a unique infrastructure model
based entirely on outsourcing to defying
norms by launching with tariffs based on
segmentation.
The approach to brand building and a
decentralized hub based organization
model also mark out a unique course.
Uninor has structured itself with an
empowered hubs model
?A telecom operator without an HQ
?Our organization is structured as 11 hubs
to cover 22 telecom circles, assisted by
the 'Support Office'
?Each hub is led by the Hub Executive
Vice-President. Each has its own P&L
responsibility. Each is empowered to take
their own business decisions, close to
where their customers are.
?In this model, with true empowerment
and local decision making, Uninor has
obviated the need for a 'headquarter' or
'corporate office'. Instead, with a role
different from other organizations, the MD
sits in the 'Support Office'
For our customers, we are here to help,
which means we treat all our customers as
people rather than statistics, offering them
our services as tools for fulfilling their
dreams, needs and ambitions. In the long
run, that's what will do most for our
customers and for our business. We truly
care about the way our mobile business can
empower people: by keeping them in touch
with loved ones, by creating educational
and employment opportunities, and by
connecting them with trade, health and
social, and livelihood services. A strictly
non-discriminatory and respectful attitude
towards customers will be the hallmark of
our approach. In a competitive market this, it
will never be easy, but we have a long term
ambition and we have made a positive start.
The first and most logical evaluation of
success is the response an operator
receives in the market. In terms of pure
numbers, Uninor leads every other new
operator (for whom independent data is
available). On an average, Uninor has
added an average of over 1 million
subscribers every month .This is the
highest month-on-month subscriber
addition among all new operators,
irrespective of technology platforms (GSM
or CDMA). As of March end, Uninor's
subscriber base stood at over 4.2 million –
and these come ONLY from 8 circles it is
present in. It is interesting to note that none
of these are metro circles (which
traditionally contribute higher subscriber
numbers)
As Uninor completes the Blue Arc – the
Uninor footprint that now sweeps
seamlessly through North, East and
Southern India covering India's largest
states. This also marks the completion of
the first phase of our launch activities. While
our launch project now shifts to the second
phase, the main focus is now to strengthen
our foot print further and thus giving our
customers a seamless network.
MAD: What various channels of
marketing is Uninor pursuing?
AD: The Telenor Group takes its
responsibility to the countries where it
operates seriously. We recognise that
mobile communication services are a
significant contributor to economic and
social growth and that the best way to
realise value is by taking a bold and long-
term perspective on our investments.
Uninor has unique channels of marketing .
Sales and distribution The other pillar of
market success, Uninor set a record when it
launched and has even today the highest
reach through distribution, modern and
traditional retail among new operators.
At launch, Uninor debuted with over
210,000 points of sale, 1000 exclusive
distributors and 50 exclusive shops (160
now) ready for service. This was a record
launch day distribution by any operator in
India (incumbent or new) and infact the
largest by any Greenfield GSM operator in
25
the world.
MAD: You have recently launched your
Brand building initiative in semi-urban
and rural markets. Please tell us
something about this.
AD: Our Brand targets the youth, the young
motivated Indian who is willing to do
something in life. Our Brand Ambassadors
are not celebrities but the next door Young
India , our very own employees who are
used as faces in the advertisements to
emulate brand UNINOR in India.
We create growth and value for all our
stakeholders by focusing on people's
n e e d s . To g e t h e r w i t h c u s t o m e r s ,
businesses and local communities, we drive
relevant change for individuals and the
societies of which we are part.
Powered by Uninor values, the retail
strategy is to establish key Sales Channels
which complement classic distribution
channels. This would include reaching out
to the evolving organized retail customers.
So the objective is not only to have an
exclusive customer touch-point in the
neighborhood which cater to all customer
mobile needs but also have our product
placement in select Regional and National
chain stores to target the desired customer
segment.
Entire gamut of enablers to achieve the
above would have to be put in place viz
Store loyalty schemes, Innovative tie-ups,
Co-branding etc.
Brand The strength of the brand, how well it
has been received by customers and how
unique does it stand in a cluttered market.
Though evaluation will always be
subjective, the Uninor brand stands out.
A 'different' brand. We chose to create our
brand around people – everyday young
ambitious Indians eager to succeed on their
own steam. These are our brand
ambassadors.
Our brand has been a huge success
wherever we launched because young
people saw others like them on the
billboards and in newspapers, echoing a
shared belief – ab mera number hai
As per a brand track survey conducted by
globally reputed research agency Millward
Brown, Uninor's total brand awareness in
each of the 8 launched circles is not only
higher than any other new operator, but in
some circles, such as Andhra Pradesh,
Uninor also beats some of the incumbent
operators in total brand awareness
MAD: Value added services are said to
be the main revenue generators for
Indian telecomm service providers.
What are your views regarding this?
AD: India's telecommunications market is
fascinating to analyse. Quite simply, it has
replaced China as the country to admire in
terms of market growth. The Indian
Telecom industry is one of the fastest
emerging markets in the world from the
perspective of Tele-density and services. Its
vast scope and lucrative market is roping in
major telecom players from all over the
world. - VAS services are dominated by
SMS - VAS has a lion's share of market at
65% followed by ring tones at 13% and
other types of services like games,
MMS,LBS making up the balance.
Integration of value chain - the integration of
While India offers tremendous opportunity
for mobile telecom vendors, exploiting
these opportunities requires understanding
India's regulatory and business
environment, as well as comprehending
India's unique social and demography.
value chain is possible only with the support
of IT which plays a key role in the telecom
market.
MAD: What sparks the launch of a new
value added service? What are the new
innovations that we can expect in VAS in
26
days to come?
AD: We would like to simplify the value
added services into 3 broad strategies:
Innovation based on relevance,
?
Simplicity & affordability
?
Think Global Act Local- in other words be
?
Regional
MAD: Uninor did not bid for 3G, instead
Uninor went for looking into ARPU. Why
was such a strategy adopted?
AD: Uninor will not bid for 3G spectrum at
present. We cannot participate in these
auctions when we haven't even received the
2G spectrum that we have already paid for.
Furthermore, our current focus is on
strengthening our service in circles we are
present in and launching additional circles
this year. We would like to concentrate our
focus and our resources in an area that is by
far the mainstay in India – good quality voice
service. It's the service that the common
man uses and also one where a lot still
needs to be done to offer consumers a truly
international standard cell phone
experience. For the current and
immediately foreseeable data requirements
in the Indian market, we believe a good
quality 2.75g/EDGE service is sufficient.
Again, there is enough ground to be covered
to deliver good quality data in India, even
within the currently available technologies.
We also believe that there will be other
opportunities and routes to get into 3G at a
stage when the market is really ready for it
and the demand makes for a sound
business case
MAD: What do you think about the Blue
Ocean strategy? Will Uninor be creating
any Blue Ocean products?
AD: Blue Ocean Strategy enables the
organisation to break away from the
competition and focus on value innovation
for the customer.
The BLUE OCEAN strategy is based on
the following factors:-
1. Market Assessment
2. New Market Creation
3. Blue Ocean Formulation
a)Reconstructing market boundaries ;
b)Strategy visualization - Big picture
focus
c)Reach beyond existing demand
d)Right strategy sequence
e)Strategy canvas
4. Blue Ocean Execution-
a)Continuous workshops to overcome
key organizational hurdles
b)Fair Strategy implementation - To
Exceed the Expectation
R E D OC EA N
C o m pe t e in ex is t in g m ar k et in g s p ac e
B e at th e c o m p et it io n
E x p loi t e x is t ing de m a nd
M ak e th e V a lue -c o s t t ra d e of f
BLUE O CEA N
Cre ate un con teste d ma rke t sp ace
Ma ke the com pe ti ti on irre le van t
Cre ate an d ca ptur e n ew d em an d
Br ea k th e va lu e- cost tr ad e o ff
Uninor being the newest entrant in the
Indian Telecom sector would like to utilise
the Blue ocean strategy in terms of creating
the target segment , thus developing a
niche market ,thereby nurturing the
customer base with its value added
services thus establishing a sustainable
position in the market.
The existing Indian Telecom market is
running after a price war without having a
quality customer base to help create a
sustainable market position in terms of a
loyal customer base for itself. It is in a Red
Ocean trying to run after competition.
MAD: What is Uninor's take on
convergence of web technology with
telecomm services?
27
AD: Service providers and operators in the
niche market are moving towards becoming
integrated players. This is clearly evident in
India where traditional telephone providers
are making forays into wireless, Internet and
data services. Cellular operators are in turn
entering into wire line communications in all
its dimensions. The day is not too far when
the customer would settle for nothing less
than an efficient single-point contact for all
his communication needs. These include
various technologies of communication
(such as the land line phone, the cell, and
Internet) and a `single-window' where all
information pertaining to the services could
be obtained instantly. The spectre of a
`convergent customer' will soon haunt the
entire gamut of telecom business.
In this scenario, knowledge management in
the telecom sector is all set to be critical
factor in competitive and comparative
advantage. It implies transforming customer
data to information that encompasses
management strategies, methods and
techniques. With the urban markets having
matured in terms of feature phone usage,
numerous mobile users in this demographic
are looking to upgrade to a smarter phone.
This replacement market will be
predominantly populated by the younger
demographic, which are early adopters of
technology and avid users of Web 2.0
technologies. Since, over 70 percent of the
population consumes only voice services,
and data services have not yet gained
traction, which can slow down the adoption
rates of the web based technologies.
Uninor being the 13th player is not far
behind with its boutique of services to be
offered like WAP portal, Internet on Mobile &
MMS services
MAD: Why has growth of Broadband
been slow in India?
AD: The Indian broadband services market
is still at a nascent stage. By the end of
2006, the subscriber base had touched 2.1
million with a household penetration of less
than 1 percent. The current subscriber is
way off from the target (3 million, 9 million
and 20 million for 2005, 2007 and 2010
respectively) set by the DoT. India appears
to have embraced the Internet with a
degree of ambivalence. There is
tremendous enthusiasm amongst the dial-
up users and an estimated 60% of users
regularly access the Internet via the
country's more than 10,000 cybercafes. But
when it comes to high-speed broadband
access, there is reluctance, especially
within the corporate sector, and the take-up
rate has been slow. Given the geographical
diversity of India, last-mile connectivity has
28
always been a challenge for telecom
operators. In the case of business centers,
laying down fibre and wiring up old buildings
may cause delays. This, coupled with the
time required for paperwork for digging and
laying down fibre/copper, makes it difficult to
provide high-bandwidth and reliable
connectivity. In Asia, India has one of the
lowest broadband subscriber penetration
rates. However, with various policy
measures and Government initiatives to
promote broadband, the market is expected
to increase to 30.1 million subscribers by the
end of 2013 (household penetration rate is
expected to reach around 8.9 percent by
2013) and come close to the goal set by the
Government
 Interview: Idhasoft
Mr. Alok Pathak
CEO

Mr. Alok Pathak, an alumnus of IIT Bombay has had a diverse work experience spamming well over thirty
years. After twenty years in the Indian Navy, he entered the industry as a Deputy General Manager in the Tata
family. In 2007, he started Idhasoft, which is now a well established name, especially in the US market. Apart
from being the CEO of Idhasoft, he is also the Managing Director of Prism Informatics, an Indian company that
Idhasoft acquired as part of it's strategic expansion plan in late 2009.

MAD: How does Prism Informatics certification and is likely to get it in a year's
segment its vast client base? time.

AP: Our customers are segmented by size,
by the business domain they belong to and
by geography.
30% of the customers are Fortune 1000 –
many of them spread across several
continents.
SME customers are few in number.
Business domain wise customers are
spread in Retail, Supply Chain, Fashion,
Apparel and Footwear, Education,
G o v e r n m e n t , Te l e c o m , H i g h - t e c h ,
Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals
Industries.
MAD: What are the various promotion
strategies you use in the B2B Business?
AP: Our major promotion strategy is low
intensity marketing and cross selling.
Through inorganic growth we have acquired
over 1500 customers. Our average revenue
size from these customers varies from 50K to
2 M dollars. A large no. of these customers
have an average budget size of over 5-6 M
dollars. This presents an enormous
opportunity to Idhasoft for cross selling and
mining the existing customer base. A
dedicated team educates our customers
frequently about the services of Idhasoft that
are not currently being used by the customer.

MAD: How has upgrading to CMM level 3 MAD: How has the recession affected
certification affected Idhasoft's business Idhasoft and Prism Informatics? What are
and operations? your predictions for times to come?

AP: Upgrading CMM level 3 brought a much
needed credibility to our development
centres since majority of large clients have a
process that dictates minimum qualification
for selecting IT partner.
Idhasoft is now embarked on CMM level 4
AP: Recession did impact Idhasoft very
adversely as a large portion of our revenues
came from SMEs at that time and that
created trouble as even healthy companies
had stopped spending in IT due to fears of
recession. However recession also caused a
vacuum of mid-sized IT service providers in

29
the US because many IT companies could
not sustain the recessionary pressures. So
an adverse impact of recession and a
positive impact of vacuum created by the
demise of small companies helped Idhasoft
maintain its revenues.
Prism was born in recession and therefore it
could leverage the opportunity of acquiring
companies at a low cost.
Currently both Idhasoft and Prism have
resumed their aggressive growth.
MAD: Idhasoft is one of the fastest
growing companies in the world. Can
you shed some light upon the business
model of Idhasoft?
AP: Idhasoft business model is akin to co-
option model wherein a large no. Of small
sized companies came together to form a
reasonable sized entity. Common
infrastructure, marketing and sales helped
margin improvement.
MAD: Please throw some light on the
latest trends in the ERP industry.
AP: ERP is becoming more business
centric and more vertical based as opposed
to generic solutions. Just to emphasize this,
earlier ERP made claims to service the
Retail vertical, and now further specialized
packages have helped to provide very
business centric solutions to fashion
industry, apparel and footwear, electronic
retail, pharmaceutical retail chains within
the retail industry. This trend will continue
30
and ERP solutions will become even more
specialized.
MAD: Please suggest some ways in
which an ERP Package like SAP or
ORACLE could improve the Education
system in India?
AP: I am not too sure that an ERP package
stand-alone can improve education system;
I think India has chosen a right direction by
first making education a fundamental right
and by creating a brick-and-mortar model to
accommodate a large young population.
Probably in the second phase, three to four
years from now, specialized ERP may
emerge to support the education system
management.
MAD: What are the strategic advantages
of using an ERP or IT package in the
retail/manufacturing or supply chain
industry?
AP: ERP helps exercise best business
practices and necessary controls. These
measures help respond quickly to any
change in business environment, thereby
enabling management to take on-time, on-
budget decisions.
MAD: As CEO of an upcoming Software
products and IT services provider, what
is your daily schedule like ?
AP: I work 12-15 hours a day and there are
no holidays. The passion to grow the
company drives my work schedule!
(via email)
JADE 2010: Marketing and Advertising Quiz
The Marketing and Advertising Club of Vinod Gupta School of Management brought in the new year and also
the events season with a bang with Jade '10 on 14th January! Jade '10 was an intra college quiz. The theme of
the quiz, staying in tune with the nature of the MAD Club, was Marketing and Advertising. Mr. Samaresh Shah
from Kolkata was kind enough to spare some time off this schedule on the Thursday evening of the 14th to
conduct the quiz. He was accompanied by Dr. Pallavi Daga also from Kolkata, who played a key role in the
designing of the quiz.

Jade '10 was divided into seven rounds, including a written elimination round. The participants were to form
groups of two and were asked to christen their teams and also design a logo. Creativity in these were used as
tie breakers in the elimination. The best six teams fought for gold in the subsequent rounds, each of which was
formed on an interesting theme. Some of the interesting rounds were “On a Roll” based on the automobiles,
“Wat(er) Body” themed on the glamour world of modelling. There was something for everyone, even the
audience, in form of “On the House” where the audience got the opportunity to tackle some of the questions.
The event was brought to a gripping end with “Perfect 10” which was the rapid fire round. It proved to be the
most gripping round of all and was responsible for massive reshuffling along the scoreboard!

Jade '10 ended with certificates in the hands of winners, newly gathered knowledge for many, smiles on
everyone's faces and a batch that was geared up for bigger events to follow!

MAD Team with the Quizmaster and Winners Quizmaster Mr. Samaresh Shah in his element

Captivated Audience Rapid Fire round with the finalists

31
 Saamanjasya – A Social Festival of its kind

The Dalai-Lama once said "I truly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of
change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of
our time to help create a happier world.” Even in today's modern context, his words hold very true. Most
businesses today have profits as their sole motive and don't factor in the impact they have on the social strata
or environmental sustainability in the long run. These effects are very visible and jolting, and they implore us to
act before its too late.

The Students of Vinod Gupta School of Management envisioned a concept called “Saamanjasya” to reduce
the visible difference between the NGOs working at the grassroot level, the students who genuinely want to
work towards the change and the corporates, and those who have the resources to help propagate the
change. The Planning took time, and after months of conceptualizing, Saamanjasya was held at VGSOM's
campus from 19th to 21st March 2010.

The event kicked off with a gala opening ceremony at the Kalidas Auditorium on 19th evening. Our Chief
Guest for the evening was Prof Madhukar Shukla, a professor of great eminence in the field of social
entrepreneurship at XLRI. He lauded the initiatives of the students of VGSoM and wished the event reaches
greater heights in times to come. Prof Tapan Bagchi, the Guest of honor and a senior faculty of VGSoM,
praised the vision of the students and thanked them for organizing a one-of-its-kind event. Next was a
performance from the kids of “Disha Seema”, a local NGO working for the upliftment of the children around the
IIT campus. “Shraddha” is the CSR wing of VGSoM and works actively with “Disha Seema” and it organizes a
fund raiser during Spring Fest, the annual cultural fest of IIT Kgp, by selling T-Shirts printed by “Disha Seema”
kids. This year, “Shraddha” was able to collect Rs 50,000 during Spring Fest and the cheque was handed over
to Mrs Hansa Nundy, the coordinator of “Disha Seema”. While speaking to the audience, Hansa Ma'am said
that “Saamanjasya” could only have been conceptualized by the students of VGSoM. The opening
ceremony concluded by a breathtaking performance by “FingerPrints”, a fusion band which has performed in
places like Vienna, Madrid and London. The performance captivated the audience, and left them yearning for
more.

“Parishram”, the flagship event of Saamanjasya '10 was an event where students from varied backgrounds
were presented with live case studies prevalent among the NGOs. The NGOs which tied up with
Saamanajsya were Save the children, Oxfam India, CRY, Khushii, Saarthi and India Sponsor Foundation.
The event with its motto - COME !! BRIDGE THE GAP… aimed to bring together the corporate world,
students and the NGO working at the grass root level. 'Parishram' was the next step in that direction. It was a
step ahead from all the other similar events in a way that it calls for all the socially sensitive community to
showcase their talent in the service of the society.

Samanjasya also took the spirit of giving back to the society to a higher level. With “Kalakaar Vikas” we
provided the local artisans and handicraft people a platform to showcase their skills and talent to the student,
NGO and corporate fraternity. The NGO's helped these artisans showcase their art at a much better level and
leveraged the Bengal culture elsewhere too. Kalakaar Vikas was well represented by variety of art forms
ranging from terracotta, bamboo-art, wooden-craft, jewellery and decorative pieces made from horns, docra
metal work, hand-worked saris and dress materials, paintings and much more under a single roof.
Saamanjasya also provided them a platform where they interacted with distinguished faculty to help the
artisans with their businesses. Prof. K. Pathak from the mining dept and Prof. Prabina Rajib of VGSOM told
the artists how important it is to innovate with art to attract customers. Prof. A. Sarkar shared some ideas to cut
production costs while Prof. A. K. Misra gave insights on various funding opportunities made available by the
government to expand the trade of art within and outside India. The workshop, which was planned for an hour,
extended for more than two hours till every artist found a solution to his problems. All the artists went back
satisfied and a positive outlook towards selling their art forms.

“Vichaar”, the leadership summit of Saamanjasya 2010 brought together leaders from business, society and
academia to discuss the importance of social initiatives, the innovations which are fuelling the next generation
of social initiatives, corporate-NGO partnership frameworks, the role of students and much more. The
speakers included Mr. YPS Kanwar, DGM HR, ONGC , Ms Shireen Vakil Miller, India Head of Save the
Children, Dr. Chanda Chakraborty, professor of Eminence at Department of Human and Social Sciences, IIT

32
Kharagpur, Mr Sunil Kumar, Social Investments Head at ITC, Ms Jayanti Dutt, AGM CSR, Tata Motors and
Mr.Soumitra Poddar, Principal Consultant with IBM. The Panel discussion was moderated by Dr.Gautam
Sinha,a distinguished Professor of VGSoM. The audience was treated to a very thought provoking discussion
and there was a consensus on a greater role of students in the day to day societal needs.

Saamanjasya also organized “Shikshan”, a series of workshops, intended to provide the audience with real-
life examples of how different aspects of corporate social responsibility have actually contributed to the
bottom-line of practicing companies. The first workshop was conducted by Michelin Tyres on “Green Tyres.
Although the lecture was highly technical, the enthusiasm of the participants to gain knowledge was palpable.
“I hope we have been able to convey to you that a tyre is not a very simple, round black thing.” Said Mr. Rahul
Chodha, Country Communications Manager, Michelin India. Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Limited
collaborated with Saamanjasya in this venture, reaffirming their role in making a meaningful difference to the
communities they rely upon. Coca Cola has been involved in more than 250 community water partnerships in
70 countries to support locally relevant initiatives, such as watershed protection; expanding community
drinking water and sanitation access. The workshop was not all about the industry perspective of water
conservation, but in the true spirit of Saamanjasya, the event was a collaboration of the ideas from the
academia and the industry. Prof. Sudhindra Panda, Head of the Department of Water Resources gave real
life examples from his research and water conservation initiatives. Dr. V.R. Desai from the Civil Engineering
Department of IIT Kharagpur provided insights into many recent technologies from the area of Information
Technology in the context of Water Resources Engineering.

Under the umbrella of Saamanjasya, WIRED, the Online Social Networking Competition was launched on
Facebook to unleash the power of Social Networking to spread awareness for a Social Cause. Participants
had to CHOOSE from a list of NGO's, CREATE a social networking page with their take on the subject at
hand, CHANNEL all the data they could find about the cause on facebook page/group, COERCE people into
joining their cause and finally, they had to CONSOLIDATE their position by making their facebook page/group
the most creative and original with the largest fan/member base. The participation in the event was
unimaginable. More than 100 Teams from all over the globe participated and launched a viral marketing
campaign to mobilize Facebook subscribers into joining hands for the cause. The best part? Even now after
the event is over, the pages live on, promoting the NGO's and the noble cause. We received entries from
Premier Business Schools like IIMs, IIT DoMs, IIFT, FMS, SPJIMR, XLRI etc besides many others.
Participation from Corporate House like AMDOCS and Startups like Silverline Group of Companies and
others strengthened our belief that Corporates are all set to support the basic essence of Saamanjasya-
Collaboration.

Saamanjasya 2010 culminated with the closing ceremony and prize distribution with the hands of Dr.
Damodar Acharya, Director of IIT Kharagpur. The Guest of Honour Dr Arabinda Tripathy, Dean VGSoM. Dr
Acharya expressed satisfaction over the fact that students of IIT Kharagpur are sensitive towards the needs
of the society and are channelizing their thinking in areas which are pertinent to human and societal
development. Dr Tripathy congratulated the students of VGSoM for successfully organizing Saamanjasya
and also hoped that the intentions that Saamanjasya brought with it is practised at all times and not just
restricted to an annual event.

Saamanjasya left people with a thought. “What are we doing and where are we heading?” It is our duty to do
something for the betterment of the world we live in, and if we can't make things better, atleast we can make
sure that things don't become worse. Sensitize to the surroundings and the people, your quest for happiness
will end. VGSoM and its students are proud to have organized Saamanjasya, and promise to propel it to a
bigger stage next year.

33
 Lighting of the lamp Words being conveyed

Participants of Parishram in Action The Elite Panel for Vichaar

Director, IIT Kharagpur sharing his wisdom An opportunity for artists to showcase

34
 SAIL presents MADison Avenue ’10
MADison Avenue, the flagship event of the Marketing and Advertising (MAD) Club of Vinod Gupta School of
Management, IIT Kharagpur, scaled new heights this year by offering an interesting and innovative events
mix to both the industry and the B-school students across the country. Working closely with the industry, the
participants were given challenging live case studies to encourage them to test the age old concepts of
marketing in unprecedented situations. It also urged them to wrench out the streak of innovation, modify and
tailor their concepts to the challenges arising in a typical business scenario and communicate it to stalwarts of
the industry.

With the aim of clinching a humdinger by being the reason of birth of an historic idea, MADison Avenue '10
was an innovative blend of five major sub-events namely: Upchaar, Analytica, Quizzard, Carpe Diem,
Envision and a Workshop on Advertising by JWT. Each event sported a different theme and addressed a
particular issue/set of issues.

Real life marketing experiences are at times hugely different from the theoretical concepts taught in Business
Schools; mainly so because of the dynamic environment and the effect of various external and internal
influences on your strategies. Though marketing and advertising is normally taught and thought of in the
context of a product or a service, it is not just about advertising a new product – it could equally be about a
place, an idea, people, experiences etc. That was why the Marketing and Advertising Club conceptualised
Upchaar, an innovative contest on formulating business strategies for establishing a metro city in India as a
hub of Medical Tourism. Upchaar was supported by Steris Corporation, a global leader in medical care
technologies. In this event, the participants came up with innovative business ideas, competitive analyses,
the issues of financing, sustainability, ethics and promotions along with specific concerns of the city they had
picked for themselves.

Moving beyond the consumer markets, Analytica was about charting out a comprehensive expansion plan
for a leading bearings company in India. Who could be a better partner for the event than Tata Bearings, one
among the largest producer of ball bearings in the country? Those shortlisted for Analytica not only got an
opportunity to table their ideas to the distinguished jury comprising of industry experts and our learned faculty
members but also gained keen insights on the loopholes in their plans during the interaction session held with
jury during of event. Getting as close to the real world scenario, Analytica came up with discussions on the
current international scenario, the demand patterns in business to business markets, actual growth trends in
the industry etc.

SAIL, celebrating its 50th year in the manufacturing of Steel in India, joined hands with VGSoM during
MADison Avenue in chalking out plans for becoming a market leader in steel retailing in the coming 12
months. Marketing a top Public Sector Company in India with a clear competitive edge in manufacturing, as a
retailer, that too, on a product like steel - Envision presented a unique marketing challenge to the participants
and a learning experience to the audience. The teams responded amazingly well to this challenge with their
comprehensive up-scaling plans. Apart from strategic plans, timelines and feasibility studies, they even came
up with advertisements and promotion campaigns for the retail format – 'Apna SAIL Shops'.

35
In Marketing, there is never a fixed plan or a route to success. There is almost nothing that remains constant -
markets change, technologies evolve, competitors emerge, new laws come into place; marketing is no
meagre task, for it requires constant endeavour, forward thinking, quick actions, rapid learning, anticipation
and continuous improvement. In a real business scenario seldom is the whole picture known. The key is
anticipating based on a sound understanding of the current scenario, keeping in mind the long-term strategic
objectives, making tradeoffs and being prepared to handle any back lashing from past endeavours. In Carpe
Diem we simulated this kind of a business environment where participating teams had to play the role of CMO
and create strategies for meeting given objectives. A multitude of challenges which included dynamic
environment, fierce competition, stiff deadlines and most importantly, a very demanding management; Carpe
Diem advanced in different stages with pieces of data provided as the simulated scene progressed.

The business environment has myriads of challenges and opportunities; everyday somebody comes up with
newer ideas and better ways of doing business. There are some success stories and some failures; some of
them become part of history, some fade away as news items. To succeed one has to be on his toes and
constantly excel in fields as diverse as product promotion, pricing, channel synergies, supply chain etc; but
the underlining fact that marks the difference between a success story and a failure is knowledge and
information. MAD captured this relentless desire for excellence with its online Quiz event Quizzard. In a call
to challenge the best minds across the country finer realms of marketing, it provided budding marketers with
an opportunity to showcase their Marketing awareness.

The culmination of MADison Avenue'10 was earmarked by a one of its kind Advertising Workshop
conducted by Ms. Raji Ramaswamy, Vice-President of JWT, one of the world's largest advertising and
communications companies. She walked the audience through the journey of creation of an advertisement
right from how a brand finds a suitable ad agency to how the spark of creativity is transformed into a
marketable idea. With some of the most brilliant advertisements in the industry, she explained the procedure
by which an ad agency took care of the target segments, the positioning of the product, its recall value etc.
The advertisements themselves spoke about the concepts - some with their sheer creative brilliance, some
because of their humour, some with their emotions, some with the power of the ideas they conveyed. Through
the interactive and engrossing workshop Ms. Raji Ramaswamy held a packed audience enthralled for more
than two hours with her insightful ideas on communication of a brand.

Apart from the Title partner, Steel Authority of India Ltd. and Event partners Tata Bearings, Steris Corporation
and JWT; Madison Avenue was also styled and promoted by other associates like Spykar Lifestyles Pvt. Ltd.
(Style & Event Partner) and BIG 92.7 FM (Radio Partner).

In the closing ceremony Archit Merhotra, Coordinator of MADison Avenue '10 expressed gratitude towards all
the partners and distributed mementos to our jury members. The closing ceremony left team MADison
Avenue with moistened eyes and a feeling of accomplishment imbuing their hearts.

Teams from the best business schools of India; the best 5 teams from across the country in each event final;
events with real-world marketing challenges; partnerships from industry giants; the 2010 edition of Madison
Avenue brought some of the best minds of the country to a common platform. It proved to be the kind of breath
taker that it promised to be. The victorious walked away with the riches, many more received appreciation and
accolades – Madison Avenue provided a unique experience in terms of the mix of events and delivered quality
solutions to some real time business problems.

36
Upchaar Promotion at venue Participants in action Ms Ramaswamy from JWT

There’s a little bit of SAIL in everybody’s life Mr. Ghosh, Steris and Prof. Guin with winners

The jumbo billboard Team MADison Avenue with participants

37
 Shraddha: Spreading Colours in Life
At the Vinod Gupta School of Management, learning has never been confined to classroom teaching. We
have always endeavored to be cognizant of our society. We believe that an ideal learning is one which helps
the society as a whole. With this in mind, our seniors from the batch of 2009 had come up with an initiative
named Shraddha. With the vision of spreading colours in life, team Shraddha has been consistently working
to spread joy and happiness in lives of people in the vicinity.

Since the inception of Shraddha, we have witnessed an ever increasing enthusiasm in students towards
social cause. The students organize many small and big events round the year through which they can devote
their time for some noble cause. Team Shraddha has organized blood donation camp, it has planned a day
out for the kids of Disha Seema, it often gives a visit to schools in vicinity of IIT campus and students from
VGSOM share their time with small kids from poor families,

The primary focus of Shraddha is social inclusion of underprivileged kids belonging to the poor families
located in and around Kharagpur. To forward our cause we have been working in collaboration with the Disha
Seema Centre, a non profit organization which runs a residential school inside IIT Campus. The school
supports the education, nutrition and lodging of about 200 children from the nearby villages. Apart from
studies, kids in Disha Seema are also get chance to indulge in activities like sports, dance, music, painting,
etc.

For the past few years students of VGSOM have actively undertaken fund raising initiatives for helping
Disha Seema. One such major activity is getting T-Shirts hand-painted by the kids of Disha Seema and then
selling them during the SpringFest, the cultural extravaganza of IIT Kharagpur. The proceeds arising from the
sale of these T-Shirts is donated to Disha Seema. Kids too have a gala time and get to paint their hearts on the
tshirts and enjoy the activity the same way as we do.

With belief that, “the greatest gift one can give others, is to give one's time”, we occasionally spend time
with these kids and it has become our tradition to celebrate Diwali with the kids at Disha Seema. Interacting
with the kids, playing games with them, distributing gifts, sharing sweets with them and seeing their faces
brighten up truly give us a sense of happiness. Till date this experience has been one of the most cherished
memories for every student of VGSOM. Team Shraddha also collaborated with the Jagriti Vidya Mandir in the
Salua village to spend a day with the students of
the school. The school is run by Gopali Youth
Welfare Society which is working for the
upliftment of the nearby region. Such interactions
have helped us experience the real Joy of
Giving

We believe, that as responsible citizens of the

nation, our responsibility does not end here. We
are working on initiatives to enhance the primary
education in the region. We, the students of
Vinod Gupta school of management believe that
our responsibility does not end with our life at
VGSoM and that wherever we go we will
continue our efforts towards the same cause at
some level or the other.

38
 A Tryst with Time
I have been in this world for a
long time. I have seen many
things pass by, but I have
remained. I am Gillu, and I will
share some pieces of my life
with you.
My earliest memories are of the time when I would
cling to my mother for new toys. I used to wait
throughout the day for the ice-cream man's bell and
the toy-sellers booming voice, never knowing
whether they will appear or not.
Growing up from the cradle to the streets, one day a
gust of wind brought with it a colourful paper, which
stuck to my face. Irritated, I pulled it out and saw that
the page had the description of a party. I got excited
and thanked the colourful paper for informing me of
the party as I had already missed a lot of them
because I was never informed.
I loathed the medicinal odour of the red-coloured
soap used in my house. But, at that time it was the so
called “good” choice compared to the other soap
available in the nearby market. Life was easy with
limited assortments to choose from. We used
whatever was available even though I so wanted a
better smelling soap. My parents always used to
tease me by saying, “the world does not run
according to you, get married and you will have
bigger problems than a bad smelling soap”.
One day my father teased me that he had found the
39
Ambuj Agarwal and Rashmi Gupta
VGSoM Class of 2011
perfect match for me. I wondered when he got the
time to travel for this quest. I was amazed to discover
that a whole slew of prospective brides were brought
to him by means of the matrimonial ads that had
started appearing in the newspaper recently. It was
fun to see his face balloon with anger when I
straightaway denied marriage at that early age and
went off for stroll in the market to subside my
agitation.
While in the market, I was delighted to find a new
soap that had a flowery fragrance. I liked the new
soap, but alas! It was very difficult to find it in the
market as it was almost always out of stock. I was
frequently disappointed and had to revert back to the
red bar again.
Adolescence brought with it an attraction towards the
epicurean habits. My choice of cigarettes started
being decided by the gigantic roadside boards
proclaiming the masculinity of people using the
brand.
To fulfil my desires, I pestered my family to purchase
the latest sensation in the music line; the radio. I
could pass hours just listening to the music that
played on it. One day I heard the description of my
dream house over the radio .I could not stop thinking
of my newfound desires even though I knew I could
not afford such luxury.
These dreams made me realise that in order to make
them a reality, I had to get a job that paid well. I was
myself surprised at the progress I made in my job.
With the earning I had, I gifted my family with the
latest luxury, a television. Our family had a great time
watching shows together. While waiting for the
baseball telecast to start, I was delighted to see the
clock that was hanging in my room being shown on
the television, inside the house of my favourite
actress. After the enthralling baseball match, I went
to bed late in the night with no intention of getting up
early.
Even in my dreams I could not help seeing myself
dancing hand in hand with the actress and being
embraced by her to the tunes of peppy songs. The
dream seemed to last an eternity until I was
interrupted by the words “Kya aap is gaane ko apni
caller tune banana chahte hain, to dial Karen 1....”
I woke up and to my surprise I felt that it was not the
place where I went to sleep. There was something
like a television kept on the table with something
which seemed like a mini typewriter, but it had no slot
to put a paper in.
I saw a person enter my room and heard some
tapping sounds, and the TV like box flashed the
picture of a beautiful girl, and the face of the person
brightened up. Gathering all my courage, I got up
and moved to the person and asked, “WHAT IS
THIS?”
He replied in a sanctimonious tone, “THIS IS A
WINDOW TO THE WORLD”, and with these words
he left me astounded to start my pursuit of exploring
the “magical box”.
Through this window I got up to speed with the
current world and came to know that it could take me
to anyone and any place in the world in the blink of an
40
eye. Gradually I got engrossed in that virtual world.
With my acceptance of the new world came
something which baffled me a lot. Every moment I
found myself inundated with offers from all sorts of
brands via the internet, e-billboards, SMS's. Now the
life was no-more easy like the time when I went to
sleep. This brought about a sensory and mental
overload even while making a choice as simple as
that of soap. While earlier I knew which brand was
good, but now with the proliferation of brands where
each one proclaimed itself to be good, very-good and
excellent; “I was confused”.
Now I could get almost anything I wanted delivered to
my place and pay online. The shopping experience
had changed but I still longed for the old days when I
could have a look and feel of things. I could even tell a
company what I felt about them and what I would
want them to come out with. Sometimes, later when I
bought the product again, I could find some of the
things that I had suggested.
I adored the brands which took care of me and to
show my love, I bought things for their name. This
habit grew unchecked and one day I wondered,
“What am I?”, “A Chalta firta Ad of my beloved
brands”. Then I realised that the brands had
completely permeated my being,
“When I saw something, I saw a brand. When I
touched something, I felt a brand, to the extent that
even when I uttered a word, it became an
Advertisement (Thanks to social networking).”
Through these social networks I have observed
many new phenomena bubbling up. The most recent
being that people are becoming more and more
concerned about the environment and are trying to
undo the harm done, by going “Green”.
It's Time to build My Brand …. It's time to
Advertise
A take on Advertisement and its efficacy in Brand Building
Ashish Rahul
VGSoM Class of 2011
“ Rome was not built in a day” , is the ubiquitous almost like a daily chore from one brand or the other.
statement you will hear when it comes to brand Let us understand what Advertising is all about.
equity of erstwhile Rome, the city of splendor and art Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal
at its zenith. As was with
Rome , so is with Brand
Equity, it takes time and a
great deal of effort in
creating uniqueness envied
by others. What exactly are
brands and brand equity?
The American Marketing
Association would define a
brand as , “a name , term,
sign, symbol or design or a
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
combination of them intended to identify the goods
services by an identified sponsor. While developing
and services of one seller or a group of sellers and to
an advertisement , the following 5 M's are sacrosanct
differentiate them from those of competitors”. Brand
and the advertisement should be developed in this
Equity is the added value based on the goodwill ,
framework.
name and recognition that a brand has earned over
The Key questions to be asked for each one of the 5
time that gives it an edge over others by translating
M's are :
into higher sales volume, and higher profit margins.
1. Mission:
The brand equity does not develop instantaneously. a. What are the Advertising Objectives?
A brand has to be carefully nurtured and marketed 2. Money:
a. How much is it worth to achieve my
over a period and communicate the target consumer
objectives?
its USP so they feel value and trust towards the b. How much can be spent?
brand. This is where the Brand Building process 3. Message:
a. What message should be sent?
comes into foray. And, while talking about brand
b. Is the message clear, concise and easily
building how can we forget the sometimes beautiful, understood?
sometimes so creative, sometimes heart touching 4. Media:
advertisements campaign that we come across and a. What media is available to use?
b. How to optimize their usage?
how can we forget those Promotional gimmicks like
5. Measurement:
“Take one free” or “10% off” that is hurled at us a. How to measure the effectiveness of

41
 advertising?
b. How should the results be evaluated and
followed up?
Step1 : Set your Objective
The advertising objectives is influenced by the
decision on the target markets, brand positioning
and the marketing program. An advertising goal is a
specific communication task and the achievement
level to be achieved with the specific audience in the
specific duration of time. The advertising goals are
classified according to the aim: whether you want it
to be Informative, Persuasive, Reminding or
Reinforcing.
As Leo Burnett would say, “Advertising says to
people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do
for you. Here's how to get it.'”
Step2: The Advertisement Budget
The advertisement budget is influenced by the
following factors:
A. Stage in the PLC – In the introductory and
growth stage, advertisement budgets are
huge to build brand awareness and lure the
consumer into trial.
B. Level of Market Share: For high market
share brands , lesser expenses are required
for advertising as brand equity. Some
Reinforcement ads can be made to maintain
the equity.
C. Competition and Clutter : In a market where
the competition is high and substitute goods
are abundant, one needs to advertise
heavily and try to differentiate their product
offering from the rest run of the mill
substitutes.
Step3 : Developing the Ad Campaign
The need is to develop a strategy and positioning of
the brand. The question here is “what” and “how”.
The “what” deals with what the ad should attempt to
convey and the “how” deals with the creativity with
which ad should be developed. So, it all boils down
to a three step process: message generation,
creative development and an evaluation of its
perceived acceptability by the target audience.
Point to remember : The ad should focus on one or
two core points. A cluttered ad with many a points
reduces the recall value of the brand.
42
Step 4: Selecting the Media
The media selection is finding the most cost effective
media source with which the twin motives of reaching
out to the desired target and to deliver the desired
number of the type of exposure to the target.
The choice of media selection is based mainly
on the following factors:
1. Media habits of the target audience
2. Product characteristics: The ad of gym
equipment should be put in health
magazine, the ad of women's wear and
jewellery is best suited in Women's
magazine.
3. Message characteristics: The ad of a newly
developed hybrid car having a lot of
technical specification can't be put on TV
and is best suited for magazines like
AutoCar .
4. Cost : Advertising on TV is costlier than
newspaper but may have a greater reach.
So, one should look out for cost per
thousand exposure.
Step 5: Evaluating Advertising effectiveness
The marketers should understand the
communication effect of an ad: its potential effect on
awareness, knowledge or preference. The
effectiveness can be measured through CER (
Communication Effect Research). Consumer
feedbacks are taken on the following points:
A. What's the main message that this ad
conveys?
B. How likely is this ad going to motivate you to
take action ?
C. What works well with the ad and what goes
against it?
D. How does the ad make you feel?
A Few of the Greatest Advertsing
Campaigns:
The Marlboro Man by Leo Burnett ,1954
The Marlboro Man ad campaign were originally
conceived as a way to popularize filtered
cigarette, which in those times was considered to
be feminine. It transformed a feminine campaign
, with tagline as “Mild as May” into one that was
masculine in a few months. Recognised as one
of the best ever campaign. It changed the
fortunes of Marlboro forever.
Apple Computer, “1984” Chiat/Day, 1984
The ad was made by Chiat/Day , the American
Division of Ad agency TBWA Worldwide. This ad
introduced Apple Macintosh computers for the
first time. Directed by Ridley Scott, it went on to
win many prizes including Cannes Lions. “1984”
became the signature representation of Apple
for years to come and gave the big fish of those
times a run for their money.
Nike , “Just Do it” , Wieden and Kennedy
The ad campaign centered around the slogan ,
“Just Do it” is one of the most powerful three
words slogan ever. Thanks to Weiden and
kennedy , the 1988 campaign became so
powerful that people are reminded of Nike even if
the company's name is not mentioned.
According to Center for Applied research the
Nike's “Just Do It” slogans is probably “one of the
most inspirational brand statements of all times”.
Even in India , some great ad campaigns have
been created. The Coca Cola series of ads
featuring Aamir Khan by the ad agency McCann
Ericsson catapulted it to the number one spot in
the beverage market. Talking about the Indian
43
ads how can we ever forget the Nirma girl or the
Nirma Super ad starting with , “Deepikaji ,aaiye
aaiye, aapka sab saaman taiyaar hai”. Or the
Lalitaji character created by Alyque Padamsee
for Surf. They all laid the cornerstones of India's
best known brands.
For the conclusion , we can say , a brand needs to
have quality and differentiating strength to
survive , but it's ad campaign that gives the initial
impetus and the necessary brand awareness.
The push is necessary and paramount for the
brand building.
Needless to say Ad making is a tough art as
David Ogilvy once said, “It takes a big idea to
attract the attention of consumers and get them
to buy your product. Unless your advertising
contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the
night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a
hundred contains a big idea”. Agreed Mr Ogilvy
but never the less , even if the summit has limited
space it will be taken by those who are creative
and they will always build great brands with
superior creativity and they will , “ Just Do it”.
 Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Indian Market
“Why read fiction? Why go to movies? Soft drinks
industry has enough roller coaster plot-dips to make
novelists drool” – Jesse Myers in Beverage Digest
July 1985
The history, the romance, the struggle, the courage,
the endurance, the confidence and the competition
characterizes the presence of an industry which no
one in their wildest imagination had dreamt would
last so long. Beginning in 1886, when a tumultuous,
inventive, clamorous and neurotic new America got
a taste of a “nerve tonic” invented by an obsessive
chemist in the pursuit of the perfect medicine, to late
1890's when a worthy adversary was born, and to
the present; change, aggression and controversy
have been the order of the day. That “nerve tonic”
was Coca-Cola, the obsessive chemist John
Pemberton and the worthy adversary Pepsi and the
adversity has not decreased an iota even after 100
years.
Indian Soft Drinks Market
1970's and early 80's—the entry and exit of Coke
India has proved to be perhaps the toughest battle
st
ground for the Cola giants. Coca-Cola was the 1
international soft drinks brand to enter India in early
1970's. Indian market was dominated by domestic
brands, with Limca being the largest selling brand.
Cola was the largest selling flavor with market share
of 40%, Lemon drinks 31% and orange drinks only
19%.
Up till 1977, Coca-cola was the leading soft drink
brand in India. But due to norms set by the Foreign
Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), Coca-Cola left
44
Prabodh Sharma,
VGSoM Class of 2010
India and did not return till 1993 after a 16 year
absence from the Indian beverage market. FERA
needed Coca-Cola to reveal its secret concentrate
formula as well as reduce its equity stake which was
not acceptable.
Pure drinks, Delhi launched Campa-Cola, to take
advantage of Coke's exit and by the end of 70's, was
the only Cola drink in the Indian market. In 1980,
Parle, another major Indian player launched
ThumsUp, the drink which till date is most popular
soft-drink in India. Pure Drinks strongly objected to
ThumsUp being called a “soft” drink as it felt its taste
is too strong. For over a decade, Parle led the Indian
soft-drinks market, with its market share reaching a
peak of 70% in1990.
Late 80's and early 90's— Pepsi's struggle to
enter India
Pepsi saw the exit of Coke as a God send opportunity
to capture then estimated 900 crore market of India.
India was then a highly regulated market with
International trade constituting only 6% of GDP in
1985. Foreign trade was subject to import tariffs,
export tariffs and quantitative restrictions. Foreign
direct investment (FDI) was restricted by barriers like
upper limit equity participation, restrictions on
technology transfer, export obligations and
government approvals. Any foreign investment had a
lot of political sensitivity to it. By the time PepsiCo
began its negotiations, the upper cap for equity
holding in Indian companies was 40%. PepsiCo
realized it'll have to be creative to enter the Indian
markets.
Attempt 1: In May 1985, PepsiCo joined hands with
the RPG group to form Agro Product Export Limited.
It planned to import Cola concentrate and sell soft-
drinks under the Pepsi label and in return offered to
export Juice Concentrate from Punjab. The
government rejected the proposal due to its using a
foreign name and importing the concentrate.
Attempt 2: Pepsi decided to play the Punjab Card
by promising to invest $15 million in Punjab,
establish an Agro Research centre (costing Rs 1.55
crores), a potato and grain based processing unit
(costing Rs 8 crores) and a fruit and vegetable
processing unit (costing Rs 5 crores). Benefits and
proposal included better market for rice, wheat and
fruits in Punjab, creation of 25000 jobs in Punjab and
25000 more in other areas. In 1988, government
agreed. PepsiCo entered as Lehar Pepsi and by
1991, it was clear that most of its promises were just
on paper.
The company did improved the productivity in India,
introduced farmers to new technology, established
agriculture research centers in Jallowal and Channo
(in Punjab) and Nelamangla in Karnataka and
invested more capital than promised (by the year
2000, total investment was Rs 18 billion), but the
picture on many other aspects was gloomy. The
planned operations in Punjab were delayed and as a
result, local farmers had to bear a combined loss of
Rs. 2.5 Million. Pepsi paid only 0.75 Rs/Kg of Tomato
compared to open market price of Rs 2/Kg.
Employment was provided to only 783 people as
compared to 50,000 promised (although company
claimed it to be 26,000 due to direct and indirect
operations). It began exporting tea, rice, shrimps,
glass bottles, leather products as against fruits and
vegetable products. There was a even a show-
cause notice to Pepsi by the ministry of commerce.
Luckily for PepsiCo, in 1991, the government of India
45
liberated the economy on grounds of severe foreign
exchange crisis and Pepsi was freed from all the
commitments it had made during entry.
Re-entry of Coca-Cola in 1993
On the 26th of October 1993, Coca-Cola re-entered
the Indian market having acquired some of the
leading Indian soft drink brands from Parle, namely
Thums-Up, Maaza, Limca, Goldspot & Citra. These
brands joined Coke's portfolio of international brands
i.e. Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Schweppes as Coca-
Cola India took control of the top soft drink brands in
India from the very beginning. From 1993 to 2003,
company invested US $ 1 billion in India.
The beginning of Cola War
For the Cricket World Cup 1996, Pepsi was not the
official sponsor of the tournament, Coke was. But
Pepsi had a whole pool of best players roped in as
brand ambassadors from the sub continent and
abroad. The ad campaign of “Nothing Official About
it” rocked the country and despite Coke being the
official sponsor, it was Pepsi which hogged the
publicity.
In 1998, with the release of blockbuster movie “Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai”, Pepsi took out another ace from its
sleeve, featuring Shahrukh, Rani and Kajol in its ad.
The punch line was “Yeh Dil Maange More” which
was an iconic line and struck a chord amongst the
people.
Coca-Cola countered by spoofing the ad, using
Sprite, to hilarious effect. Pepsi responded with a
spoof of its own, starring Azhar and Jadeja hitting on
the Coke line of “Eat Cricket, Sleep Cricket, Drink
Only Coca Cola” with the punch line of “More More
Cricket, More More Pepsi”. Coke again hit back, this
time with Thumbs Up ad. They portrayed the
cricketers as monkeys and ended the ad with “Don't
be a bunder (monkey) Taste the Thunder!” Situation
turned ugly with Pepsi going to court and finally
ended with Coke withdrawing the ad.
The Cola wars went on full-fledged till 2003, when a
pesticide controversy forced Coke and Pepsi to
fight on the same side in so called “India's New
Cola Wars”.
The Controversies
Presence of Pesticides: In 2003, the Centre for
Science and Environment (CSE) findings stirred the
beverage industry in India. CSE claimed to find
dangerous levels of pesticides in all the 57 samples
of 11 soft drinks brands collected by the organization
from 25 different manufacturing units of Coca-Cola
and PepsiCo spread over 12 states. The study found
a cocktail of three-five different pesticides in all the
samples - on an average 24 times higher than norms
laid down by government-run Bureau of Indian
Standard (BIS). Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Kerala banned the sale of
Colas in schools, colleges and government
departments, and other states also took adversarial
measures.
The day after the CSE's announcement, Coke and
Pepsi came together in a rare show of solidarity at a
joint press conference. The companies attacked the
credibility of the CSE and their lab results, citing
regular testing at independent laboratories proving
the safety of their products. They promised to
provide this data to the public, threatened legal
action against the CSE while seeking a gag order,
and contacted the United States Embassy in India
for assistance. They roped in major film stars to
explain their purity to public. Despite all these
measures, sales dipped by as much as 80% in some
regions. The soft drinks industry took over a year to
46
get back on the growth track.
Ground Water Crisis: Coca-Cola was recently
accused of ground water depletion in many areas of
the country. Coca-Cola's bottling operations – which
extract hundreds of millions of liters of water from the
groundwater resource – have significantly worsened
the water crisis as groundwater levels have dropped
sharply since Coca-Cola started its operations. The
company was also accused of indiscriminately
dumping its toxic waste into the surrounding areas –
polluting the water as well as the land. The Coke
reiterated its commitment to trim down water usage
and take steps towards environment sustainability
and farmer's welfare. However, activists retort that
Coca Cola is in the business of water usage and
wasting, creating a luxury product largely for the
middle class. They are unlikely to put water concerns
over profits, until they are forced to.
The road ahead
Amidst various allegations and controversies, the
soft drinks industry in India, supported by its booming
economy, strengthening middle class and low per
capita consumption, is growing at a cruising pace.
The focus has shifted from carbonated drinks to Fruit
drinks, with both the companies launching Lemon
drinks in 2009-10. In the next few years, the fruit juice
category is likely to carry the growth flag forward as
consumers become more health conscious. The
companies are likely to take more steps to deal with
environment sustainability. But the Cola wars are
here to stay. We as customers can be assured of
superior products and hilarious ads in the process.
And are we complaining?
 Telecom Marketing Strategy
Telecom sector ecosystem consists of Infrastructure
side OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturers ) ,
ODM's (Original Design Manufacturers), Silicon
Players , Mobile Operators ,ISV's (Independent
Software Vendors) and Device side Handset
Manufacturers and Consumer Electronics Players .
This ecosystem value chain is key to the survival of
any player in the Telecom Domain .
Looking at the Telecom Value Stack each player is
trying to consolidate its stack offering to survive the
tough competition in this ecosystem .The entry
barriers in the ecosystem have been thrown apart by
the open sourcing of these elements of value stack.
Clear Example seen can be Google acting as
prosumer and commoditizing the Operating sytem
like Android and
throwing the platform
open for innovation .
Monopolies of certain
Handset Manufacturers
like Nokia and Apple are under threat due to this
change in the rules of the ecosystem game .They are
also changing their strategy and first move seen is
47
Deepak Jhamb
VGSoM Class of 2010
that the legacy Mobile Operating System like
Symbian also becoming Open Sourced .
Looking at the Complex picture of this B2B Business,
the onus is now on the 3-Pillars of the Company
namely – Business Development , Marketing and
Sales Team to utilize their Engineering expertise to
hit on to the ecosystem where they can act as a
differentiator and position themselves with
something substantial with rapid time to market cycle
and move away from the general low cost
outsourcing tag.
Business Development team' s task is to build up the
Strategy Roadmaps to Revenue for the Service or
Product Offering . They usually are the people good
with Strategy and industry knowledge so that they
can start creating the funnel and qualify the leads to
convert them into customers by the time the funnel is
closed or the deal is through .They have to support
the Marketing and Sales team throughout the funnel
process when the contracts and
charters are being prepared for new
projects with the clients . Marketing
team runs through various Campaigns
with the help of Business Development
Team and generates leads through the
Web Marketing Tools and spreads the
initial awareness about the company
and its offering . Marketing people are
generally good at polishing and
communicating the value of offering across the
customer segments through various medium's like
website , emailers to Trade Shows and Social Web
Marketing .Sales team consists of very experienced
people who have lots of industry contacts in the
ecosystem and these people are real masters in
communication with clients and their task is hard
selling and negotiations to complete the top line
number targets .These 3 –pillars along with the
engineering team support run through and manage
various projects which bring on the revenue for the
company .Essentially Telecom Marketing stands on
this base and with the
rapid changes going
on in the value chain
of the ecosystem ,
everyone has to be on
his toes to cut
through the
competition . Trade shows , client relationships ,
targeting the ecosystem powercentres, website
marketing , emailer campaigns , Telemarketing
Campaigns are very essential components of
48
Telecom Marketing . Joining appropriate Forums and
actively participating and contributing in forums
activities is essential for a company to build a
goodwill to attract new business . Building around
and finding the core competency in the value chain
along with value stack consolidation is key to the
company's strategy in Telecom ecosystem .
Platform to work is also a key question for building up
the Telecom ecosystem strategy and with plenty
around
, companies have
lot to think about
and that's why the
puzzle keeps
complicating with
the innovation
making everyone rethink about their strategies .
Platforms to choose from for Handset OEM and
system Integrators .
 Web Analytics Tools – Know thy
Visitors!!!
Neha, a Garment Fashion Designer published her
new dress design on her blog. In just a week, her
post got more than five hundred unique hits. She had
always believed in showcasing her creativity to the
world. However, even after a month of her publishing
that design, no one had placed an order for it. Neha,
unsurprisingly, was very confused. If so many
visitors were visiting her post and they liked what
they saw, how come there weren't any orders
placed? What's going wrong here?
Websites facilitate interactive information sharing,
interoperability, user-centered design and
collaboration on the World Wide Web. This new form
of web communication is also changing e-commerce
through the number of hits and online
advertisement. But amidst the talks of hits, visitors,
most popular post etc, the relevance of visitors is
often left out. Marketing is most commonly defined
as understanding needs, creating and delivering
value to the
t a r g e t
segment.
Ta r g e t
Segment
applies as
much to the
o n l i n e
marketing as it applies to the conventional
marketing.
Probably Neha didn't realize that though her post
was getting hits and appreciation from visitors, she
was missing out on the Target Segment!
49
Aditya Zutshi,
VGSoM Class of 2011
Analytics Tools show the website owner how people
found the site, how they explored it, and how the
owner can enhance the visitor experience. With this
information, the owner can improve the website's
return on investment, can increase conversions and
make more money on the web.
Picture this- everyday before you call it a day, with a
single click, you get to know how visitors found your
site and how well they interact with it. You compare
the behavior and profitability of visitors who were
referred from each of your ads, keywords, search
engines, and emails, and gain valuable insight into
how to improve your site's content and design,
however large or small your site, and however you
drive traffic to it - whether it's unpaid search, partner
sites, AdWords, or other cost-per-click programs an
analytics tool tracks it, from click to conversion.
One of the most users friendly Analytics Tool is
Fig. 1:Summary of Website
Google Analytics and provides complete package of
analytics service free of cost. All you need is a Gmail
Account and you're good to go! The tracking process
begins with logging on to Google Analytics
(www.google.com/analytics) and adding a new
website profile. Having entered the URL of the
website you wish to track, Google Analytics gives
you a script that you need to paste in the code of your
website or blog, and it starts working its magic.
Figure 1, shows some statistics of a personal blog --
performance whether by usage metrics, return visit
numbers, or time on page. It provides information on
visitor interaction with the site, the type of visitors,
and information about how they are viewing the site.
Other information includes Benchmarking, Map

Sources through which visitors arrived on the website

www.adityazutshi.com -- for the last 2 months and
Overlay, New vs. Returning Visitors, Languages,
gives the viewing pattern of visitors, but that is not all.
Visitor Trending, Visitor Loyalty, Browser
You also get information of the sources which led the
Capabilities, Network Properties, and Traffic
visitors to your website. With more and more
Sources. It also gives information on the pages in the
companies going for Search Engine Optimizing for
site and how visitors interact with each one and the
their websites, using efficient tags is of utmost
time spent on page, landing and exit page
importance. Analytics tools let you track the
information, and a navigation summary for pages.
keywords that visitors searched with and arrived on
If you ever meet Neha, don't forget to advice her to
your website. This insight can be used to alter the
use an Analytics Tool to measure the performance of
tags and drive more and relevant traffic.
her blog! As Ken Blanchard quotes, “Feedback is the
This is not all! Analytics Tools like Google Analytics
breakfast of champions”
have over 80 reports to help gauge the site's

50
 Ambush Marketing
As per Oxford dictionary, the word 'ambush' means
'The act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to
attack by surprise' and this is exactly what a firm
does on its competitors when it employs 'ambush
marketing' strategy. Bayless coined the term
Ambush Marketing in the year 1988 to first describe
to describe the purposeful and false association by a
company not sponsoring an event toward the end for
deriving benefits similar to those afforded to official
sponsors. In a narrow sense, Schmitz (2005) defines
ambush marketing as the direct efforts of one party
to weaken or attack a competitor's official
association with a sports (most generally though not
limited to sporting events) organization acquired
through the payment of sponsorship fees.
However the most interesting definition in lay man
terms was given by Abram Sauer in his article
'Ambush Marketing: Steals the Show'. He says that
'Imagine you throw a party and invite heaps of
brilliant interesting people. Your roommate fails to
help with the planning or cost. Imagine the night of
the party your roommate shows up and claims up co-
sponsorship. Imagine watching in awe as the
freeloader takes credit for your expense and effort.
Now imagine the party just cost you $20m.'
Ambush marketing is indeed a major threat to
sponsors and has done some serious damage to the
sponsors in the past. Most marketers feel that they
would rather do ambush marketing than have it done
to them. What makes ambush marketing so effective
for the ambushers is the fact that the attack on the
sponsor is from the competitor who is least expected
51
Sourabh Agarwal
VGSoM Class of 2011
to cause any damage to the sponsor since the
sponsor is generally a large corporate firm. However
this might not always be the case. The most
appropriate example of a well established large firm
applying ambush marketing is that of Nike. Nike has
been at the centre of many an ambush marketing
campaigns against other major footwear companies
such as Converse, Reebok, and most frequently on
Adidas.
Perhaps of all sporting events in the history, The
Olympics can be easily singled out as the event most
troubled by Ambush marketing campaigns. Be it the
American Express in 1992 Olympic games, or Nike in
the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, or most recently Li Ning in
the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. Out of all the
ambush campaigns around Olympics, the one that
cost the sponsors the most was 2008 Olympics
where the sponsor, Adidas, suffered heavily due to
an ambush attack by a lesser known Chinese brand
Li Ning. Li Ning was a former Chinese gymnast who
won six medals- including three gold- during the
1984 Olympic Games at Los Angeles. Since retiring
from the gymnastics, he had also become a
successful entrepreneur. Capitalizing on his
personal brand equity, he founded Li Ning, an athletic
apparel company that specialized in footwear and
clothing. He was a natural choice for lighting the
Olympic torch at the Beijing Olympics. Because of
this most people thought that Li Ning (the company)
was the official sponsor for the games whereas the
reality was that Adidas was the official sponsor of the
event. As a result Li Ning got more publicity and
advantages of the event without even paying for the
rights and Adidas lost a great deal of benefits and
money because of this.
These kinds of activities increase the work and the
responsibilities of the International Olympics
Committee (IOC) by many folds. Not only do they
have to lure the companies to sponsor the event but
they also have to make sure that the companies get
as much benefits as they expect out of the event
sponsorship. Not only do they have to come up with
marketing strategies to give them maximum
exposure but they also have to be on their heels to
protect them from ambush attempts from their
competitors. What makes their task more
challenging is the fact that the sponsors are
generally ambushed by the competitor who is least
expected to cause any trouble. They have to ensure
that the competitors don't associate themselves with
the event illegally. After all it's not only the Sponsor's
money that is at stake but also one's country's
reputation and integrity.
However, it is not only the organizers of the event
who are supposed to keep a check on ambush
marketing campaigns. The organizers have a
number of important priorities, of which
sponsorships is only one. The sponsors should
shoulder this responsibility alike as it is in their best
52
interests. Not only should the company plan
efficiently in sponsoring an event but it should also
take every care in noting down the competitors move
in and around the event. You cannot even afford to
ignore your smallest competitor because if you are
an international firm, there is a large chance that you
might be ambushed by a local company. What
makes matters worse is that once ambushed you are
stranded in a lone island. The ambushed company
over-reacting to an ambush can look like bullies.
They might hurt the sentiments of the people of the
country. This might do them more harm than doing
any actual good.
Frequently, the most debated issue is whether or not
is ambush marketing ethical. Different marketing
professionals look at these issues in different ways.
For some it's a virtual necessity in modern
competitive business practice. There are very limited
options when it comes to competitive advertising and
when the resources are limited then the best way to
gain the most out of your investment is by resorting to
ambush marketing techniques. Also some believe
that in sponsoring an event the company only buys
the rights to attach itself to the event but the company
doesn't get the ownership of the consumer's mind
per se. Hence, it's widely accepted and followed by
reputed firms, advertently and inadvertently.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,
India - 721302.

Phone : +91 3222 282295 / 282297 / 278027