Victory at IIML-HLL Marketing Strategy Competition

The New year has begun!!..and what a start it has been with respect to Personal achievements!!

The highlights:-

--Got Placed with Perfetti Van Melle

--Team of Five(Dinesh, Mohit, Subbu Jr., Tarang and Me) won the HLL-IIML Marketing Strategy Competition for the Fair and Lovely Brand.(The competition included IIMA, IIML, XLRI, FMS and SCMHRD).

The Live Case Study on the Consumption increase of Fair and Lovely-FAL ......... one of my biggest learning so far......the application of significant part of what has been learnt over the last one and half years.....the joy has been more in the process of doing the research and suggesting strategies......the Victory was an affirmation of what was done......

The project took all five of us to places(Like Rural Hinjewadi, Meeting girls at Pune University, Online Questionniare filled in other cities outside Pune, approaching ladies in middle class societies, outside malls and supermarkets, also door to door calls, in beauty parlours, conducting Focus groups among women of various age groups,.... and what not!!)..... and made us meet ladies and girls of all hues.We stretched ourselves to the limits..at all the times.......

Being an all guys group made life more difficult with respect to getting the urban women to talk on fairness creams to us.....getting them receptive for the Questionnaire was a big task indeed..... The limited time frame ...we had....made ...finding the respondents a challenge..which was met by going all out for it......and effective planning...

Our marketing professor Mr. Prantosh Banerjee was also very helpful with his timely inputs and comments on our work at all times. His approval of our work has been a big boost throughtout all the interim submissions we made...and always made us believe we could do better...So were other professors, whom we interacted with for the project.

Sitting all night, debating and discussing the project and going to Infosys Canteen in the morning nearby at around 6 AM or so became a habit of sorts.......for somedays....the body clock had almost changed since most of us preferred working in the night........

All in all..a Project spanning almost 2 months.........650 odd respondents....across the Target group......in urban and rural areas........with strict deadlines......and a regular meeting room .... the 4th Floor-Syndicate room..which we have renamed as the Markstrat room....and in mohit's lingo..."our den".

Some moments which will always be treasured, like Subbu Jr. Bursting out in an animated discussion on what "Market Pulse" is all about.....Also the frequent dozing offs..from his side made up for lot of fun during all the debates and discussions.....

Tarang standing like a rock amongst all of us and anchoring the boat for us, dinesh with his exhibits of sheer brillance and mohit with his enthusiasm and sheer smartness.....were great mates....

One of the most...important things in the group was..every ....point ..well... debated threadbare and made sense of with all perspectives possible.....Also not to forget the inputs we got from all our fellow batchmates mainly girls during pre-testing of the questionnaire and its administration.:)

The icing on the cake was Prof. Prantosh Banerjee's talk to all of us after we told him about the victory. His nuggests of wisdom will always be treasured and thought about during all important events in life.

The Victory has been Sweet, the efforts have been rewarded, and this is one event ...all five of us will treasure as part of our B-School memories dearly.....