The events lined up include the coveted titles of ‘Mr. & Miss INDEX’, ‘Mr. & Mrs. INDEX’ and events such as Antakshari, family-based games, Salsa etc. There will be a gamut of games stalls designed and made completely by students of IIM-L whom you would surely see in a variety of costumes, ranging from Bunty and Bubli to Ravana and Garuda, creating games based on stories of these popular characters. Add to that a whole lot of prizes to be won at the fair including lucky draws. Not to forget the number of food counters arranged to provide refreshments to the visitors. Take a look around the city and you see INDEX buzz with all Hutch hoardings, book stalls and popular shopping areas carrying the INDEX colours on them.
Amazing competition and corporate participation on Campus:
That was just the fair! As you are aware, beyond being a fair this event is a part of the unique market research initiative by the students of IIM Lucknow. It is based on the concept of “Disguised Market Research” – which seeks to gain insights into the consumer’s perspectives/needs through intelligently designed games to overcome the ‘Sensitization Effect’ . As a result, our clients spread across the FMCG, Banking, Services and IT sectors and Industry heavy weights like HLL, ABVG, ITC, TATA Group have been partnering with INDEX regularly. This year, at INDEX, everything has reached new heights. Corporates came in with 10 live projects, from a diverse spectrum with a value offering on a variety of research objectives like gauging product awareness, assessing competition, identifying consumer needs, measuring strategy effectiveness et cetera. In contrast, 14 teams from IIML of 20 members each registered for INDEX this year to bid for them at the proposal making stage. IIM Lucknow ever-strong focus on marketing and immense competition which has always been a feature of INDEX certainly came to the fore again at this stage. The game design stage in which the teams design their games and work on the props and costumes at the fair is about to round up now. It has also been distinctly marked with notorious ‘night-outs’ and a lot of secrecy with teams being assigned special rooms accessible to the team mates only. They are all set and gearing to go to the fair with dialogues, costumes and themes galore to give the respondent all the entertainment possible while carrying out data collection at the same time. Besides the fair, the Data Analysis and Presentation stage also promises a load of action and interesting research like last year when evaluations were done by Industry bigwigs such as senior executives at AC Nielsen, ORG-MARG, McCann-Ericcson India and esteemed faculty across the country.
The opportunity for the students to gain exposure to market research from the ground-level up and acquire the experience of working on live case projects is working wonders with teams getting in touch regularly with the clients whose projects they are executing respectively promoting the symbiotic students-industry relationship.
Evolution of processes at Index:
Over the 12 years of our existence, wehave evolved the fair into a professionally managed event with a plethora of processes directed towards an efficient system.
At the “Systems desk” we specifically direct respondents to research stalls based on their profiles suiting the research objectives which ensures relevant and efficient data collection.
Seeing last years crowd at the fair, this year we have introduced batch processing at the desk to ensure better crowd management and a streamlined and secure process.
New initiatives:
Every year INDEX also undertakes “Play-the-brand” for some of our partners at which students promote awareness and attributes of the clients’ brand. The promotion is done through innovative games created by students and executed at the INDEX fair.
In 2005 we also had a module christened “AdEffect” in which students tested the effectiveness of ad-campaigns by making use of several techniques developed at IIM L.
TATA iBrand
The year 2006 gave IIM Lucknow’s focus on marketing a new dimension when INDEX decided to step out of its market research role and expand to other areas in marketing with the launch of iBrand (a branding initiative) in October.
In today’s world consumers are increasingly becoming brand conscious and the plethora of brands available makes it a challenge to differentiate one’s brand from the other. Hence the event iBrand was launched in association with TATA as the principal partner to enable students to explore the field of brand building, an event we seek to expand and promote in the years to come.
Around 25 teams registered for the event with each team consisting of five students. An initial elimination round brought the number down to six teams which were assigned products like Jewellery, Cellular Services, Salt, Tea, Automobiles etc. The onus was on them to name their products, specify the features and devise a strategy to build its brand image amongst the IIML Community.
The event was a huge success taking even the organizers by surprise. Videos ads were made and telecast at prime locations, intra-college sports events were sponsored by the individual teams and so on through an elaborate bidding process in which the teams bid for various avenues available for promotion.
The performances of the teams were evaluated on the basis of their strategy adopted as well as the brand recall amongst the IIML Community regarding their product.
INDEX Highlights –
· Only B school event across the country to be conducted in the city.
· Footfalls over 10,000 from Lucknow.
· 240 students working on live projects across 4 months: September – January.
· Evaluation by top faculty, and senior executives at AC Nielsen, ORG-MARG, McCann-Ericcson India
· 100 students in support teams:
o Operations Team – (the Backbone of the fair) responsible for mobilization of over half the campus to the INDEX grounds (yes the student mess also) and the whole setup of the fair. During the two days fair they ensure smooth flow of participants, security and overall services
o Systems Team – (the Nerve Centre of research) responsible for managing the dynamic process of handling a massive database and ensuring efficiency with constant input from research teams
o Informals Team- (the Entertainers) keeps the crowds coming with the plethora of activities and events like Mr. and Ms. INDEX and other attractions like Antakshari