The Hindu Business Line : Catching them young

MOOD Indigo, IIT Mumbai's college festival, has had a great track record for many years. The event is organised with great involvement and professionalism.

Malhar, the college festival organised by St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, also attracts a wide spectrum of people. It has a different flavour and participation. Similarly, Oasis, at BITS Pilani is a festival having great depth and participation from across the country. Umang, organised by NM College, Mumbai, has one of the largest number of participants and brings in a unique exciting culture at the festival.

College festivals have become a professional exercise where students plan, conceptualise, visualise, market and organise the festival as a major event marketing project. In fact, the amount of hard work, intelligence, initiative and creativity that goes into creating the success of these festivals can match any professional organisation or any aggressive brand launch.

The reason I believe this trend should be respected and taken seriously is that it could be the breeding ground for future brand marketing professionals, which could be a great boon to the industry.

Let me analyse the marketing of college festivals and the development of future brand marketing professionals under each element.

I would like to analyse the entire trend in the form of six `I's, which would lead to a great insight for the marketing world.

Initiative

When teenagers put in their best in the marketing of their college festival, they seize the initiative and proactively move forward in planning, implementing and monitoring the college festival activities. It is not just long hours but the self-start attitude which gets them to achieve wonders, whether in attracting sponsorships or marketing ideas to other colleges or conceptualising new games or refining old practices.

The corporate world benefits immensely from this practical behaviour when the same youngsters join companies and use their college festival experience in building excitement in brands helping sales growth in a profitable manner.

Ingenuity

The corporate marketing world respects originality. The fresh ideas from fresh minds give a fresh boost to sales. The ingenuity in devising activities and generating interest is undoubtedly creative, leading the young mind to look for new paths and cross new frontiers.

This phenomenon of creativity and originality helps the marketing world later on, in the fields of advertising, promotion and brand experience.

Intelligence

Marketing of college festivals helps sharpen intelligence, giving opportunities for its use from the planning stage to the implementing and monitoring stage. In fact, while a lot of people learn by knowledge and a lot of people learn by understanding, these young organisers of college festivals learn in the best possible manner — learning by doing.

This opportunity to use intelligence and sharpen the mind definitely helps the marketing world in the future, whether in the world of logistics, networking, sales or distribution.

Information

Use of technology is a must, whether in gathering information or using information to make well-considered decisions. This definitely helps in future, in marketing information systems as well as in the field of market research and in media planning. Not only is the data collected, but also the information is converted into actionable knowledge, which helps the marketing world in the future.

Income

There can be no business activity without a growing topline and a positive bottomline. In fact, revenue streams are thought through, pricing strategies are considered and mutually beneficial deals are struck for sponsorships. Hats off to these young marketing minds who organise college festivals because they have positive reserves built over these years.

Indulgence

The quantity and quality of participants is a critical factor in determining the success of the marketing of any college festival. Just as in malls, the footfalls at college festivals are very important for participation, cheering and healthy competition. In fact, the level of positive indulgence at a festival definitely increases the chances of success. For this, the entire atmosphere must generate interest and should be organised in such a manner that it builds positive recall to ensure even greater participation in the next year. To my mind the insight to the marketing world is that it should encourage college festivals strongly whether in terms of sponsorships or other forms of support and presence, so that it is later able to benefit from the development of these young, budding, brand marketing minds who would take their brands to greater heights.

(The writer is Managing Director, Samsika Marketing Consultants Pvt Ltd)

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