“I am very pleased to see the efforts of the students, and I am sure that this rural marketing fair is a unique initiative by any management institutes in the country. Despite the academic pressure, the students successfully organised this on such a grand scale and I am really impressed with them,” said Fr. E. Augustine, Dean- Administration & Finance at XIMB.

The fair witnessed huge participation because of the innovative game designing for market research for Britannia Industries Limited, Lotte Confectionary, Hindustan Unilever Limited and Cholayil Private Limited.

Besides this Paradeep Phosphates Limited and ICICI Limited also witnessed enthusiastic participation. Huge shining banners and attractive promotional campaign attracted large number of people visiting the haat (market) on Sunday & Monday.

The innovative market research campaign for ‘Britannia Marie’ and ‘Vita Marie Gold’ was an excellent learning opportunity for the students which also complemented the company’s effort to promote their products in rural areas.

“I am delighted to see the overwhelming response from all students and the target audience as well. We would like to be associated with XIMB in all future endeavours. The market research campaign is very creative and we need them to promote our products like ‘Britannia Tiger’ & ‘Marie’ range of products which are very successful in rural areas,” said Mr. Badri Beriwal, Product Manager, Britannia Industries Limited.

“Pedagogy in all management schools is almost same, the students’ activity and the extra-curricular activity differentiate students from XIMB to others,” he added.

Twenty-two year old, Amit Rath a visitor in the fair said, “It is an opportunity for villagers to seek information and buy products of daily use at competitive prices. It also gives us some insight about the product from the company representative.

“Besides brand awareness and quality consciousness, the farmers learnt many new things about farming as well as different products. The fair also provided a platform for farmers as well as company people to come on a single platform and gain from each others experiences,” informed Praveen Kumar, Team Leader for PPL.

People from different walks of live visited the fair. Like Prashant Sahoo, a commerce graduate said it was altogether different experience for him as he could never think about these things. “The text book knowledge must be supplemented with the practical field experiences,” argued Saurabh Mishra.

Britannia, HUL and Medimix were huge hit among women, while Lotte got popularity among the children. PPL attracted farmers and ICICI Lombard attracted matured people and older generation. Therefore the Gramotsava’07 had something for everybody.

The students’ effort also impressed professor as well who visited the fair to encourage them. Prof. S. S. Singh, who is having experience of more than 26 years in the rural sectors, lauded the students’ effort. “The fair is a grand success not only in terms of size but also in relation to the crowd it attracted through creativity and innovative designing of games to catch the maximum eyeball.”