Nestle Day gave the students a chance to step into the shoes of Nestle brand managers by putting to test their theoretical knowledge. The challenge was to design a communication campaign for Nestlé’s mega brand Kit Kat. Titled ‘Kit Kat Kampus’ this event urged participants to let loose their creativity and prepare a campaign to make Kit Kat an iconic brand for the Indian youth. It all started with a brief issued by Nestle which set the objective of the whole exercise. Teams were required to submit their entries and ideas to the Nestle team. Five out of the many entries were chosen to present their campaign in front of dignitaries from Nestle, JWT and Zenith.

Before the event started, one of the senior brand managers of Nestle presented the audience with expert perspectives which ranged from the objective of the competition to how it is actually done in the industry and 360 degree campaigns. She enumerated the process involved in creating a successful campaign and ended by congratulating all the participants and appreciating their commitment, level of work and creativity.

The finalists then presented their ideas one by one to a great response from the audience and panel alike. After a highly competed final, this part of Nestle Day came to and end.

The next section involved a guest lecture from Mr. S N Narayanan, MD, Nestle Singapore. As he himself put it, it focused on the ‘non glamourous’ but extremely important aspect of distribution systems in marketing and was titled ‘Managing the Cutting Edge – The Last Mile to the Consumer’. Starting with Porters model, Mr. S N Narayanan introduced the enthralled audience to the Red ocean and Blue ocean approach. Being a practicing sales manager himself for many years provided the audience with the ‘cutting edge’ about sales and distribution and gave them totally new perspectives. He talked about the evolution of distribution systems and how to efficiently structure a distribution system. Talking of challenges in sales, he stressed that it is the domain which helps any person develop immense leadership qualities among its other benefits. Explaining with the aid of practical examples of HLL and Nestle itself made it much easier for the audience to understand the presentation. Especially the ‘Hub and Spoke’ Model adopted by Nestle for its Chilled Dairy business illustrated the importance of innovation wherever applicable. Finally he touched upon the challenge that modern retail presents to distribution and ended the insightful presentation with the essence of managing the cutting edge. This was followed by question and answer and the session concluded with a standing ovation by the audience.

The final section Nestle Day was the presentation ceremony. The top two teams received Nestle gift hampers and cash prizes worth Rs.30000. However the icing on the cake came when Nestle announced PPI (Pre Placement Interviews) to two senior batch students. The team from Nestle ended by thanking the audience for the great response and praised the efforts of the participants once more. The eventful Nestle Day finally ended with a vote of thanks from the JBIMS student fraternity and an initiative to make Nestle Day a regular event in the JBIMS calendar.