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.
 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.
 Table of Contents

Experts Speak

Click 1

Influence of Consumers' Exploratory Tendencies on their 4

Proneness to Deals

Social Media: Marketing and Balance 6

Marketing your Band 8

Interviews

Mr. Arvind Singhal, McDonalds 10

Ms Susan Jain, IBM 13

Mr. Akash Das, Uninor 15

Mr. Alok Pathak, Idhasoft 20

Jade 22

Saamanjasya 23

MADison Avenue 26

Shraddha 29

Student Articles

A Tryst with Time 30

Its time to build my brand, its time to advertise 32

Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Indian Market 35

Telecom Marketing Strategy 38

Web Analytics Tools: Know thy visitors 40

Ambush Marketing 42
 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 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.

1

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
p e s k y a d ?
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 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
2
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
D o C o M o 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
e a s y. T h e r e i s n o s i l v e r b u l l e t .
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, 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
3
a n o t h e r o n l i n e a d .
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, Professor,
VGSoM EIILM, Kolkata
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 undertook
regression studies on the data collected for 410
consumer-respondents in West Bengal to see
how each of the three forms of ET affected
customers' proneness to redeem eight types of
deals widely offered in the Indian marketplace
on the purchase of shampoo (an FMCG) and
refrigerator, (a consumer durable) as shampoo
and refrigerator were two of the three products
on which 89% of the deals have been offered in

4
the past. The eight types of deals considered in rupees-off offers and coupons in that order while
our study were Coupon, Sales, Rupees-off, they were deciding on the purchase of
Buy-one-get-one-free, Free gift with shampoo. Similarly, brand switchers were likely
purchase, Shelf display, Rebate/Refund and to switch to a brand of refrigerator that was well
Contest. displayed, or had a rupees-off offer, free gift
o ff e r, b u y - o n e - g e t - o n e - f r e e o ff e r, o r
We measured customers' ET using the rebate/refund offer in that order.
questionnaire reported by Raju in 1980.
Similarly we adapted the questionnaires Risk takers or innovative consumers, on the
developed by Lichenstien and Burton in their other hand, were most likely to buy a new and/or
1997 studies to measure consumers' unknown brand of shampoo that offered sale,
proneness to the eight types of deals. As was displayed well on shelf, offered contest,
posited, it was found that the three forms of coupon, rebate/refund, free gift, rupees-off and
consumers' exploratory tendencies positively buy-one-get-one-free offer in that order.
affected their proneness to eight types of deals Similarly, risk takers were most likely to buy new
in varying degrees. The results implied that or unknown brand of refrigerator that was on
people like brand-switchers, who have high sale, offered rebate/refund, contest, coupon,
levels of ET (i.e. risk taking, variety seeking and rupees-off, or was displayed well, in that order.
curiosity satisfying tendencies), are prone to
various types of deals as the deals allowed Above figure illustrates the rank of proneness to
them to achieve their high levels of stimulation different types of deals by brand switchers and
(OSL) and help them switch brands. Similarly, risk takers for deciding on the purchase of
risk taking and innovative people tend to satisfy shampoo and refrigerator. Marketers can now
their ET and achieve their OSL by purchasing select the most effective type of deal to be
innovative, new products. However, the link offered on the purchase of shampoo and
between consumers' curiosity satisfying refrigerator to two different types of customers in
tendencies and their deal proneness was not West Bengal, in order to ensure the purchase of
statistically significant. 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
Managerial implications offered on different types of products for
achieving best sales results.
Our study threw up some learning for marketing
professionals. It was found that consumers with
high levels of brand switching tendencies, i.e.,
brand switchers, were prone to shelf displayed,
free gift offers, buy-one-get-one-free offers,
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

5
 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.
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. I 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

6
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
7
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.
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.
 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 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

8
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 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
9
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.
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,

10
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: W h a t a r e t h e s u p p l y c h a i n
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 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
11
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 enjoy and have a special time'.
However, the onus was to consistently build and
protect the brand while persistently
committed to fundamentals of QSC&V
(Quality, 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 l i k e
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?
12
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?
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 deliver on both the "art and
the science" of their profession play a key role in
taking this to a strategic level.

SJ: Our Marketing Managers work closely with MAD: What are the key points in Brand
the business in their role as advisors on the management for IBM as a B2B organisation?
marketplace to perform market analysis,
including segmentation. They utilize a global SJ: Managing across a very broad portfolio is

13
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. At any point in
time, we may have openings in Marketing
Operations, Market Insights, Market
Management (including industry- and brand-
specific), Brand Planning &
S t r a t e g y, a n d M a r k e t i n g
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
14
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 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%.
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 Jharkhand), Orissa, Tamil Nadu,
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

15
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 - 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
ŸA telecom operator without an HQ
ŸOur organization is structured as 11 hubs to
cover 22 telecom circles, assisted by the
'Support Office'
ŸEach 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.
ŸIn 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
16
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
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 needs.
Together with customers, 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
17
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
days to come?
AD: We would like to simplify the value added
services into 3 broad strategies:
ŸInnovation based on relevance,
ŸSimplicity & affordability
ŸThink 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
18
b)Fair Strategy implementation - To Exceed
the Expectation
R E D OC EA N
C o m p e t e in e x is t in g m a r k e t in g s p a c e
B e a t th e c o m p e t it io n
E x p l o it e x is t in g d e m a n d
M a k e th e V a l u e - c o s t t r a d e o f f
B LU E OC EA N
C r e a t e u n c o n te s t e d m a r k e t s p a c e
M a k e t h e c o m p e t it io n ir r e le v a n t
C r e a t e a n d c a p tu r e n e w d e m a n d
B re a k t h e v a l u e -c o s t t ra d e o f f
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?
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
19
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 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
(via email)
 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 segment
its vast client base?
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, Government, Telecom,
High-tech, Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals
Industries.
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 the recession affected
Idhasoft and Prism Informatics? What are
your predictions for times to come?

AP: Recession did impact Idhasoft very

MAD: How has upgrading to CMM level 3
certification affected Idhasoft's business
and operations?
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
certification and is likely to get it in a year's time.
MAD: What are the various promotion
strategies you use in the B2B Business?
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 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.

20
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
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?
21
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

22
 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

23
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.

24
 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

25
 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'.

26
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.

27
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

28
 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.

29
 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
30
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
31
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
“ Rome was not built in a day” , is the ubiquitous
statement you will hear when it comes to brand
equity of erstwhile Rome, the city of splendor and art
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 combination
of them intended to identify the goods and services
of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate
them from those of competitors”. Brand Equity is the
added value based on the goodwill , name and
recognition that a brand has earned over time that
gives it an edge over others by translating into higher
sales volume, and higher profit margins.
The brand equity does not develop instantaneously.
A brand has to be carefully nurtured and marketed
over a period and communicate the target consumer
its USP so they feel value and trust towards the
brand. This is where the Brand Building process
comes into foray. And, while talking about brand
building how can we forget the sometimes beautiful,
sometimes so creative, sometimes heart touching
advertisements campaign that we come across and
how can we forget those Promotional gimmicks like
“Take one free” or “10% off” that is hurled at us
almost like a daily chore from one brand or the other.
Let us understand what Advertising is all about.
Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
services by an identified sponsor. While developing
32
Ashish Rahul
VGSoM Class of 2011
an advertisement , the following 5 M's are sacrosanct
and the advertisement should be developed in this
framework.
The Key questions to be asked for each one of the 5
M's are :
1. Mission:
a. What are the Advertising Objectives?
2. Money:
a. How much is it worth to achieve my
objectives?
b. How much can be spent?
3. Message:
a. What message should be sent?
b. Is the message clear, concise and easily
understood?
4. Media:
a. What media is available to use?
b. How to optimize their usage?
5. Measurement:
a. How to measure the effectiveness of
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.
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.
33
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
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
34
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
35
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
36
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
37
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 that the legacy
38
Deepak Jhamb
VGSoM Class of 2010
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 and actively participating and contributing in forums
people are real masters in communication with activities is essential for a company to build a
clients and their task is hard selling and negotiations goodwill to attract new business . Building around
to complete the top line number targets .These 3 and finding the core competency in the value chain
–pillars along with the engineering team support run along with value stack consolidation is key to the
through and manage various projects which bring company's strategy in Telecom ecosystem .
on the revenue for the company .Essentially Platform to work is also a key question for building up
Telecom Marketing stands on this base and with the the Telecom ecosystem strategy and with plenty
rapid changes going on in the value chain of the around
ecosystem , everyone , companies have
has to be on his toes lot to think about
to cut and that's why the
through the puzzle keeps
competition . Trade complicating with
shows , client the innovation
relationships , making everyone
targeting the ecosystem powercentres, website rethink about their strategies .
marketing , emailer campaigns , Telemarketing
Campaigns are very essential components of Platforms to choose from for Handset OEM and
Telecom Marketing . Joining appropriate Forums system Integrators .

39
 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?
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 target
segment. Target
Segment applies
as much to the
online 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!
Analytics Tools show the website owner how people
found the site, how they explored it, and how the
40
Aditya Zutshi,
VGSoM Class of 2011
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
Google Analytics and provides complete package of
analytics service free of cost. All you need is a Gmail
Fig. 1:Summary of Website
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 --
www.adityazutshi.com -- for the last 2 months and
gives the viewing pattern of visitors, but that is not all.
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
Overlay, New vs. Returning Visitors, Languages,

Sources through which visitors arrived on the website

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

41
 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
42
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
43
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.
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.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,
India - 721302.

Phone : +91 3222 282295 / 282297 / 278027