IIM-Indore fest attracts top corporate guns
Satish Misra

Visitors at the IIM-Indore marketing festival held recently.

FUN and frolic for serious search into consumers preferences and behavioural pattern has been developed as a useful tool at the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, where its three-year-old marketing festival, Utsaha, appears to have matured into a sought-after event.

It not only had six companies as partners this year, but over 1.5 lakh visitors at the recent two-day affair on the new campus.

Dabur, Reliance Telecom, Dainik Bhaskar, Free Press, SBI and UTI were the research partners this year and over 40 corporate companies displayed their products and services.

For two days, the IIM campus literally turned into a living laboratory where research was undertaken.

Started in 2004, the marketing festival enables a get-together of corporate managers and consumers where research projects can be undertaken in a fun-filled environment.

While the live projects provide hands-on experience to future managers, Utsaha has proved to be of immense value to the brands themselves.

"We simulated a hair salon for the hair colour project that we are doing for a leading FMCG major," Secretary, Media and Public Relations Committee of the festival, Shiv Dewan observed.