The Hindu Business Line : IIM-K marketing seminar ends

Delivering a talk at Synapse, the annual marketing seminar of the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, Mr Jayanth V. Pendharkar, Head, Global Marketing, TCS, said Indian IT companies currently clock around $30 billion of an opportunity of $1200 billion, signifying the magnitude of the challenge ahead. To attain their full potential, IT companies should develop global brands based on Indian values.

Mr Syed Ahmed, EVP-Marketing of ITC, highlighted the corporate responsibility of every company towards society and the environment, which in turn would go a long way in reducing economic inequity. He stressed that a good corporation acted as a trustee of the socio-environmental resources that it employed in production, using them in a sustainable manner.

Mr Atul Phadnis, Founding Partner, Media e2e, discussed communications planning in the global economy. He dealt with complexities in communication and later concluded with the fallout arising from these complexities.

Mr Phadnis also focused on the need to quantify the effects of brand experience, PR coverage and how the consumers cope with surprise advertising. He also spoke about the ubiquity of advertising, citing the example of how a typical cricket match bombards viewers with as many as 400 brands. "Consuming content has become as natural to humans as eating or sleeping," said Tarun Tripathi, Marketing Head of Yash Raj Films.

In a four-hour workshop, he tried to educate and sensitise budding media professionals to the emerging context of content management and marketing.

The theme of the seminar was `Marketing Revelations: Through the Seer Stone' and the topics discussed ranged from brand revival to international marketing to a talk on the marketing of movies by Yash Raj Films.

The event also featured a paper-writing competition on `Grocery Retailing: Facing the kirana challenge,' which received over 200 entries from IIMs and other top B-Schools.