Mr S Sivkumar, Chief Executive, Agri Business at ITC and the brain behind the e-choupal initiative was the keynote speaker. He talked about the evolution of marketing thinking considering the social marketing network in rural India and how firms can make a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.

In the SMIA competition, 18 companies that applied this year include Microsoft, Marico, Mahindra & Mahindra, Motorola, Pentland, Ginger, Tech Mahindra, Corporation Bank, Tata Steel and Bank of Baroda. Four companies namely, Marico, Motorola, Ginger Hotels and UK-based Pentland, were short listed to present their case on SMIA 2008. The result declared Marico as the winner for its advanced IT-based Sales Information System with Motorola as the runner up for the impact of their marketing initiatives.

Also, the event had a panel discussion of industry experts, discussing how to make marketing accountable to the business. The discussion ranged from the limitations of quantitative metrics in marketing to Brand Equity and how to effectively leverage its benefits for business.