30 Short Stories

The fresh aroma of hot jalebis and pakodas was the first thing that struck me when I got outta the Dadar station with a huge guy aka Abhimanyu. And the second thing that struck me was Vinay Pawaskar ka stud looks. And then many things went for a notification. Smita aur Riddhi ke beech mein pyar (man both were fighting to unload their luggage from the taxi), Alpesh ka nerdy look, Sumit ka sab ke saath interaction (man's always in action), Natasha ka checking out men, Lakshmi ka getting outta her luxurious car. Gursimran ka entry with his guitar along came Zeeshan with his squash racket. Somewhere i saw an aged man, was around 27 then, i guess, i thought he was from Lowe, but later i learnt that he was our classmate, Neville De Souza. And the rest went for a toss, cos then i could notice me feeling weird (din know any of the 29 unknown faces). Seeing everyone gather around Swaminarayan Temple, my eyes were only hunting for Deepti Mehta. She was then the course coordinator for Northpoint. It was she who was to take us to Khandala, to our dearly loved institute.

Now that we were on-board, the bus choked black hot vapor containing fine particles of carbon (surely must have, all the buses in India choke that way). And the journey to Northpoint started. Oh by the way, we left in two different buses, so we split into two groups. Thus, my chances of knowing others was down to 50.

I still remember how Vidhi Mehta and Gursimran were trying to entertain the crowd. I was least interested, hardly knew them then. There was this guy sitting next to me and Abhimanyu. Said he wanted to make a film someday. He was then talking to me about movies. Abhijeet. Was nice knowing him. He was equally dis-interested, guess he was feeling the same. The guy was calm, composed and excited. All of us were. He would'nt let you feel weird. I was comfortable by then. We reached Northpoint, now we were in one group. 29 people, with different ideas. 29 different thoughts. Suppose to be 30 right, well Dasmeet missed the orientation, mate was unwell then.

The orientation got over, we got introduced to Mr.Prem Mehta, Mr. S.V.Siva, Mr.Rajeshwar Upadhyay and Deepti Mehta, got our id's and we were off to Country Side. The lovely motel where we were put up.

Deepti allotted rooms to us. Again we were split in two groups. The girls were parked in the main building and the guys were placed in some khandar (they say all spooky events happen in such kinda place). It was getting dusky, i was sitting in the garden with Deepti, what we saw was a lean guy, like me, dragging a heavy suitcase, right from the entry of the motel. It was Dasmeet, one of my roomies (this word was coined by the girls).

MAY 22, 2005 was the day when this unforgettable event took place in our lives. And here we are, tow years thence, a long journey we have traversed and nothing to regret about. Nothing to forget. No memories to dispose. We have learnt only to cherish the 730 days of blissfulness.

Amit Bisani

P.S: For the rest 29 short stories, get in touch with the other 29 PGPAMC'ists.

Reminiscing the Rural Stint

The Rural Marketing sessions at Northpoint brought to light new perspectives. Right from the start, the fact that rural India brings with it the task to address around 700 million potential customers; add to that the diversity of our nation- it all seemed very challenging. It exposed us to new forms of reaching out to this audience which made the learning both exciting & interesting at the same time.

Today the Rural consumer is as discerning as his Urban counterpart. Through the theory sessions we learnt that with the explosion of print & electronic media in the villages, continuing education & the general all-round economic growth there has been tremendous growth in villages. Consequently, all this has led to an increase in literacy levels; also a shift in purchase decisions taking place has been observed. The present day rural woman is not restricted to household chores or the four walls of the house, today she is in the market place making choices of textiles & provisions and not just that; she is also driving choices. Through initiatives like the project Shakti of HLL, few women become ‘dealers’/ ‘distributors’ of HLL products. Thus benefiting the company by sales & the woman generates income while simultaneously becoming self reliant.

Having uncovered these insightful lessons, I set out for the rural stint to Jaipur. There our task was to study the banking habits of the villagers and to come up with ways by which a popular bank could increase the footfalls in that region.

However during the field trip we unearthed a rather bleak state of affairs in most of the villages around Jaipur. Here the farmers still relied on petty money-lenders or their family for loans. They were averse to the banking habit due to the formalities of the system. They mentioned high interest rates, the need to mortgage the land, the requirement of a guarantor & a limited pay-back period as some of the reasons why they perceived banking unfavorably.

However what works for them is the presence of Co-Operative schemes such as the Gramin Sahakari Samiti. One farmer described it as, “Kisano ki banayi gayi, Kisano ke liye.” Under this scheme a group of farmers would come together & pool in money. This would then be used up by the farmers depending upon the needs. This was also perceived favorably as it enabled them to not only purchase seeds & fertilizers; but also to store them.

At the end of the field trip we realized that there was a huge need for a change in the mindset required. The rural folk needed to know about the banking facilities. We needed to communicate to them about the different Bank schemes & benefits that they could avail of & so we devised strategies accordingly about how this could be brought about.

And finally, looking back at the rural stint, I can definitely say that it has been one of the most thought provoking & enriching learning experiences at Northpoint.


So here’s cheers to the hinterland……..Rural Marketing is here to stay!!!!


Stephanie

Learnings LinPersonal

I would like to share my learning that I had at LinPersonal

The topic that I would like to talk about is Customer Relationship Management and few other terms that are related with the topic.
Let me start with a very fundamental definition of CRM.

“It’s the evolving practice of understanding customer behavior and reacting to it in order to maximize profitability”.

One of the important points to understand under CRM is Lifetime Customer Value
There are two ways to calculate it.
Absolute – Difficult to calculate
Relative – Easy to calculate

Customer behavior changes over time and these changes are clues to the future. These changes over time are referred as the customer life cycle.

We should also look at RFM Model if we talk about CRM

RFM Model – Recency, Frequency, Monetary
RFM is directly proportional to Life Time Value.

Customers are labeled as best or worst then mails are sent to both. Then their responses are compared. Cut back mail to worst and spend more on best customers.

Also we try to optimize -
Optimize - spend more to increase response rate from the customers while cut down costs on discounts.

Another thing that should be considered is
Customer Retention
Hold on to most valuable customers
Make less valuable customers more valuable

Customer loyalty programs are very important

Data is a very important part of marketing

Data Driven Marketing
1 Allocating marketing resources
2 Customer behavior is more effective than just demographics
3 Make customers feel good about their decisions
4 Actions ------- Reaction ------ Feedback ------ Repeat

Data speaks

Hurdle Rate – The percentage of customers demonstrating a certain level of the behavior being profiled.

Marketing programs comes from one basic concept – tracking, understanding, and profiting from the customer lifecycle.

ROI – It’s the amount of money spent divided by the net profit generated over a defined length of time.

Simple CRM

Measure – evaluates current customer retention situation
Manage – implements customer retention marketing and training program.
Maximize – creates a feedback loop for continuous employee learning.

CRM can generate increased profitability
Reducing costs
Increasing customer value

Kavita

Rural stint at Varanasi: A Reality Check

12 people, 3 agendas and one place. At the start of our Rural Module, the whole thought itself sounded impossible. We were a bunch of ignorant students who though Rural India was just about poor people in mud huts with land and no resources. Then we had the very enlightening rural theory sessions where we unlearnt most of our beliefs and learnt the truth. We learnt that though part of the rural India is about mud huts and poverty, but its also about people like this guy we met in our stint who had 2 tractors, 12 bighas of land, a DVD player, LG color TV, 4 two wheelers a sprawling bungalow. Another point to note was that such an individual wasn’t a rare exception as we might imagine.

Now let me take u through some parts of our journey and the nuggets of truth that hit us like bolts of lightening from time to time.

Our group of 12 completely different people went to Varanasi for our internship. Three of us out of that had been given the task of studying MARUTI OMNI as our brand. Imagine our state when we realize that the car itself is not known by its brand name but as MARUTI VAN. This was only one of the first surprises out of many more that came our way in the 8 days that we spent there.

Our modus operandi was to first understand the system of sales there through meetings with the dealers and then chart out a route to cover the given areas. The first interesting detail we learnt was that the sales of cars in villages actually had a unique pattern. Most of the sales happen around festivals like NAVRATRI and DHANTERAS and so do the related promotional activities

Another very interesting learning was that people don’t like taking loans. They like to pay in hard cash for most of the things, even for big things like a car. Their ideology is that” WE take pride in buying everything on cash and not on Karja". But slowly and steadily they are also getting educated about safe loans and EMI’s.

One of the most interesting nugget that we learnt was that if one sees the geographical map of Varanasi, it shows that the city is divided in two half’s by the Ganges. We noticed the crops cultivated on the upper side of the Ganges were wheat, rice, sugarcane. And the other side of the river there was wheat, maize, flowers (Marigold) and tomatoes.

After probing further we came to know that it’s because of the land and the magic of river Ganges. The farmers on upper side of the Ganges have to wait a little more for the harvest and can’t harvest more than 2-3 cultivations at one time, whereas the farmers staying on other side of the Ganges could have 3-4 cultivations and could harvest earlier.

Another bolt of lightening was that don’t always depend on logic because logically anybody conclude that that the farmers who can have 3-4 harvests will be earning more money. But it’s not true as we learnt from the dealers that sales of a high involvement product like cars were more in the areas above the Ganges.

We probed further as this failure of our brilliant logical minds wasn’t that easily acceptable to us (pun intended) and we learnt that though their harvest is only twice but due to the scale of farming as well as the price fluctuations in the available neighboring markets for rice, they were earning more money.

This piece of information was really very important for all of us when we had to devise our strategy. And so my key learning’s from this stint is that we can sit in AC offices and make strategies but it’s the ground reality that has to be considered. A scrutiny at the grass root level has to be done. Then and then only you will be sure that it would work out.

And to emphasize this point of our ignorance about the true picture of Rural India and extent of opportunity available there, I would like to leave u with a fact that “there are 6, 34,000 villages in India.”

Sandesh

When Bosses are Two?

My very first observation during the IMAG stint was that every division does everything for the brand they handle. Right from the ideation to the execution and till the post evaluation, all divisions do all of this. The most exciting division to work in was Healthcare.

The task we got in this division was stimulating for the mind and very interesting to work on. This entire project was about checking out the feasibility of opening an institute which will train nurses and help them in going abroad and hooking them with a hospital abroad. Not only we needed to surf the internet a lot but we had an added task of reporting to two bosses. Dr. Menda and Dr. Shukla were the two mentors that we were reporting to at one time.

Dr. Menda is a practicing doctor as opposed to Dr. Shukla and hence the difference in expectations and perspectives. Every time we took the project a step forward, approval was needed from both of them. The toughest part was to handle differences in opinions. In a real work scenario if this is the situation, it will be ones ability to convince both bosses to their own point of view.

It takes a lot of patience and an open mind to take in two pieces of information that are opposites. It also gets important not to put down any one of them in front of another. Somehow I feel a session on conflict management can really help us perform better in similar situations.

I feel that I have completed my week long stint with Healthcare successfully since our team was able to bring both our bosses to the same platform. Definitely it took a lot effort and a lot of hard work to keep both the mentors satisfied. But, at the end of it, it is us who are satisfied and our work gets due approval.

Tanya

Lasting Impressions

People and Places – two things that I can say I have always been passionate about. This was reason enough for me to be excited about the rural stint that I have recently come back from. Add to that an interesting twist in the form of exploring villages and rural areas with an objective, and you get the perfect recipe for fun, memorable experiences and eye-opening learning.

I’d like to be honest and confess that I was apprehensive when we got a project on banking for the rural stint. It seemed like a tough nut to crack, and it indeed was as we learnt over a period of 8 days. But it was challenging to do, and provided for ample learning and experience in the end. On that account alone I think I’ve accomplished the objective of the stint.

Banking, even for an educated, sophisticated city-dweller is sometimes difficult to understand with its jargon and the many complexities that surround it. Therefore, banking for an illiterate, simple farmer in faraway Neendar or Morija had to be tough to comprehend. Having stayed in the southern part of the country for the better part of my life, I was aware of the development that had taken place in the rural parts of the area. I had left for Jaipur thinking that the same must have happened in other rural parts of the country, even if it wasn’t to such an extent as in the south.

Imagine my surprise and shock when we met 3 families of 6 adults and 9 children, living in huts made of mud and straw and whose combined monthly income was a meager Rs.1500 – or Rs.100 per person per month. What could I ask these people? Should I have asked them the name of the bank they went to? Or what kind of loan they took? However, these people did take loans - to buy food to feed themselves and their children. And then we met farmers who owned land that could have been the size of a small village itself. The difference between the haves and have-nots, rich and poor, couldn’t have been starker.

That family, the children, standing outside their home talking to us, telling us things that we had only heard of and never really believed, is the one lasting image I have come back with.

Gaurav

Sweet Child of Nine

There are certain things you like and there are certain things you don’t like. Sometimes you end up confusing fear with dislike. It must have happened to you as well. One fine day, Sharad Varshney, Head Strategic Planning at Linterland, a dashing personality, came to ‘Discuss’ at Northpoint and showed me the difference.

Linterland is the Rural Marketing division of Lintas IMAG. It was the last division at IMAG that we interned at and we did rural cconsumer research. The whole concept attracted all my attention the moment Sharad conducted a mock research interview in typical rural circumstances.

I had never been as scared as I was that very moment when I went up there. Suddenly, making sentences was so difficult. My grammar went for a toss! Fear I sensed, which translated into dislike in my head. Another problem was, the way our questions got framed, they attracted answers that were leading us away from our main objective. Our approach had to be different – it’s not for nothing that the terms Urban and Rural were created. But the consolation came sooner than I had thought; a few others faced the problem I had. Then we were taught a little secret. Now this secret is something that helped me gain courage to go into little villages and come back with all the answers I needed to. That's when I knew this would become my favourite stint here at IMAG, just after getting over my fear!

If you want to know the secret, read the title of this article again. Decipher the four words.




I have been visiting villages ever since my childhood, but never had to interact with people of different ages and have to ask them absurd questions such as ‘how do they brush their teeth’…! This time we had an objective. What I found was to talking to the younger generation helped make in-roads into the family from there. Turns out I was just scared of talking to people I was culturally different from; not that I disliked it.

To quote Mukesh, a smart teenager at Neendar gaon near Jaipur. “…Yeh bacche choti umr se hi sab samajhte hain. Inhe sab practical hi sikhaya jaata hai. Agar yeh koi istahar dekhte hai to inhe pata lag jaata hain kitna sach hai aur kitna exaggeration hai...” Pretty insightful huh! I thought so too.

Several times to understand the habits of a household or few households put together, speaking to a kid [9 – 15 yrs] would be enough. In other cases, the kid with his genuine intentions to help, would take us to the right person in his family, who in turn would give us all the information we needed.

The confidence that I gained as my teammates and I spoke to the child helped me to ease myself out. Confidence ultimately helped me in asking our questions in a logical flow and receive the right perspective! Smooth.

No wonder, all the quotes that I remember even a week after the trip to the villages were from kids!

Deepika

Roll No.30 Hands On Experienced…

DM was from the first day itself was about basic learning. I was teamed up with Pratik for the DM stint. Within LinPersonal there were various individuals working on separate products and categories Insurance ,Credit Cards , Retail etc. These executives need to be updated not just about their product but also the category. However a day only has 24 hours. Therefore we were asked to come up with an effective solution to obtain relevant information for these client servicing executives. The solution should not take up a lot of place, need not be cost effective and should be self-sustainable.

We were asked to come up with ideas on the first day itself. When we presented these ideas on the first day itself they weren’t completely rejected. But I was informed by our mentor that we missed a couple of points (self-sustainable, not take up space).
We then went back to the drawing board. At the last day of the DM stint we presented on same topic. This time our mentor thought the ideas were more applicable...

Something similar happened when I moved on to Lintas Healthcare. We were given creative brief for a painkiller. The differentiator for this painkiller was that it was cool on the stomach.The first round of ideas that I bounced off to Cherojit were rejected. Not just rejected but also criticized. Now there was a deadline given to us 6:30 pm.It was already 5:55 pm. This time around when I sat for concept development I thought to myself “Keep it simple”. Finally I went back with just one idea. The simple idea got accepted. I then was witness to the entire process.

1. Client Servicing Briefs the creative(Copy and Art).
2. The creative is then rolled out.
3. CS then has a look the work. Suggest changes if felt necessary.
4. Once the CS approves it he mails it to the client.
5. Client approves and thanks the agency : )

Note: This process is what happened in this particular instance. Process may vary according to situation

Learning: From these two instances I learnt the first idea might not be the right idea. Just incase be prepared for the rejection.
I learnt red might mean love to me and you but to a Doctor it might mean red blood corpuscles. When you are sending a creative for a VAF (visual aid folder) or DM mailer your interpretation may certainly be different from the TGs interpretation.

Yash

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius

The world of Integrated Marketing Communications was like a revelation to all 31 of us. After having received our theory module at Northpoint that covered fundamentals of Direct Marketing, Public Relations, Event Management, Entertainment Marketing, Outdoor Advertising and Designing and Packaging, we were all looking forward to the IMAG Stint with Lintas. We wanted to put to practice the principles we had learnt.

We started off with Lintertainment (Entertainment Marketing Division) as our first unit. With the strong connect that Bollywood films have with the masses, many brands are chalking out various strategies which will help them create a direct way in which to promote themselves using films. This we realized when we worked on a sequence that would seamlessly integrate a rice band in one of the scenes of an upcoming Bollywood release. Similarly, apart from In-film placement, we were also exposed to Multiplex Activation which was another medium that was used for a banking brand. Here it was interesting to note the slew of options available in a theatre (not to mention the price one has to pay for the same…..) right from popcorn branding, ticket jacket branding, seat branding to kiosks; and just when you thought it was over- say hello to toilet branding too!!!

We had to meet up with the promotions managers of various multiplexes like PVR, Adlabs, Inox etc; go through their rate cards and then optimize our plan on the basis of the budget.

On working at Lintertainment we understood how the business works- at what stage and how are producers approached. We realized how it is mutually beneficial and symbiotic for Brands and Producers (Films) to associate with each other.

After this stint, we were with Advent (Event Management Division). Here we worked on the launch of a very premium international watch brand. This project was very interesting. The team had devised a plan to launch this watch at a suitable Heritage site (in keeping with the brand values, lineage etc) so we were then involved in recommending heritage sites in Mumbai. We had to call up various clubs, hotels and art galleries and also visit them to check on bookings and logistics. This was the fun part; as we had to bear in mind the various elements of the event and check if the site would be conducive enough for the launch. Here simultaneously we researched other watch brands that were competitors.

Our next task involved analyzing the consumer feedback forms of Tilda, a popular rice brand that Advent had received. We had to compare Tilda with other brands like Dawaat, Kohinoor, Lal Quilla, etc across parameters like Taste, Aroma, Cleanliness, Price and Offers.

LinOpinion (Public Relations Division) was yet another great experience. This division was buzzing with activity. Firstly, we worked on the media and consumer audits for a leading international clothing brand. We had to receive inputs from consumers on this brand, the line, price points, accessibility etc. Similarly we had to collect views from journalists who covered the fashion beat. This information would help us to gauge current perceptions about the brand & help to evolve suitable strategies for the PR plan.

Some of us also had to make follow up calls for an event at the Taj. Here we had to receive participation confirmations from journalists & photographers who would cover the event.
We had the opportunity to be present for another event that was held at Atria Mall. Here we were responsible for Media registration and the interaction with media.

An important service provided to clients at LinOp is that of Daily News Tracking; consequently we had to scan newspapers like TOI, HT, DNA, Mumbai Mirror, Mid Day, Asian Age etc. for articles on some of the clients & their respective competitors.

At LinOpinion we had a comprehensive understanding of the different functions of PR and how they can be efficiently executed. Here we realized that maintaining good Media Relations is of primary importance.

So far having completed these projects across the various divisions of the IMAG, we really better understand and can relate more to the concepts discussed earlier in class. Being on the job brings new perspectives to our thinking and our perception of how the different facets of each business come into play. Integrating each form of communication into a more meaningful WHOLE for the consumer.

Indeed, Confucius was right………….. I did and I understood!

Stephanie

The Hardest Part

Wanna know what we experienced at Lintas IMAG for two whole months while you emptied recycle bins??

READ for God's sake... READ!

We got a whole new section for your convenience [now, aren't we considerate!]. Click on the tab IMAG Learnings.

5 is to 350

Sometimes when you travel you come across knowledge which you cant wait to come back and share…thanks to the Sony Cybershot 7.2 megapixel digital camera with a Carl Zesis lens we were able to capture this knowledge.

We were in Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) for our Rural Marketing Stint. When we met village heads around Vijayawada we came across an interesting trend in these villages. We have made a two minute mini-documentary on the same.

Have a look let us know what you think. Click on the link below to see 5 is to 350

Team C , Vijayawada: Sriya , Vibha and Yash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aADQJaCaetI