November 13, 2011
School of Business, Bengaluru
 

Evacuate the building; get out while you still can.
 

The old and outdated marketing strategies are about to collapse. To survive in today’s world, new techniques are needed to beat emerging challenges. Only the latest tools of the trade can ensure marketing success.
 

The 10th All India Management Students’ Convention put those tools to the test as students went for the gold in paper presentations, business plan and debate competitions.
 

The convention conducted during October 12-13, at Kamaraj Arangam, Chennai, showcased competitors’ skills in communication, reasoning and management.
 

The exciting “Big Debate,” was the featured event, which brought out the best in the well-matched opponents.
 

Forty contestants battled it out. The debate topic: In today’s intensely competitive world, sales and consumer promotion spends more than branding and advertising investments contribute to building businesses.
 

After competing in two preliminary rounds, participants went to the final round; the best three for and against the preposition were selected to speak.
 

Speaking against the preposition, Vijay Nagarajan, second-year MBA/MS student from Bengaluru campus, emphasized delivering quality products above all else. “Once we focus on quality, customers will automatically buy the products,” he emphasized.
 

Contrasting Idea cell phone ads with his opponent’s argument about the latest Airtel campaign, which uses friendship as a branding strategy to hook new buyers, Vijay said, “I argued that it was better to have a firm hold on existing customers.”
 

The arguments won Vijay the second prize in the competition — he received a citation and a cash award of Rs. 15,000.
 

Meanwhile, Vijay’s juniors, first-year MBA/MS students, took part in a recent competition at SSN College of Management and Computer Applications in Chennai, winning second place.
 

Divya Naveen R., Kruthika, Muralishankar, Rajkumar, Theepika and Ramkumar were awarded Rs. 2,000 in the AD-WIZ competition that saw participation from nearly 50 colleges from across the nation.
 

The three-round event required students to create a new brand using a popular brand as an example. The students, who learned about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their first trimester, told the judges they were going to allocate 10% of the brand’s profits for CSR.