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The brand wagon

GRD undergrads organise the "Brand Outlook " exhibition

THE STORY Behind the big names

Bovonto to Coca Cola, Rolls Royce to Mercedes Benz, Bajaj to Honda - how did these brands come into existence? Who pioneered them? What is their market value now?

The under-graduate management students of G R Damodaran College of Science, created a visual picture of what they had learnt in college and more.

Says student Juhan Karthikeyan, "We learnt a lot as we collected material about the brands. This practical opportunity has given us a lot of confidence.''

A petty-shop at a village to a world-class showroom — everything found a place at the Brand Outlook 2006 held at the College Indoor Stadium.

The bigwigs

Archies, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Adidas, Nike, Maruti, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, TVS, Honda, Bajaj, Nokia, Sony, Apple were some of the brands on display. Did you know that a pharmacist initially manufactured Pepsi as a medicine for stomach cure?

And that the first radio jingle ever broadcast nationwide was from PepsiCo? That Macintosh is a brand of apple that Steve Jobs loves? He asked his staff to find a name for the company, failing which he threatened to name it after his favourite apple and that is how the Macintosh brand came about. These nuggets of information were all gleaned at the exhibition.

"Inside of brands," was the main theme of the exhibition says the staff coordinator, V. Padmanabhan.

"The students wanted to do something innovative this year, and so, we hit upon the idea of an exhibition that focussed on brands. Our aim was to encourage the students to explore and learn about various brands and also explain it to other students. Not only did their knowledge about brands improve, they also got experience in marketing and used their creativity to design the stalls."

"We used to organise a cultural festival every academic year. This year we wanted to do something different. So we started with this expo. This idea was conceived and put into reality within a week's time. So we didn't really have time to invite all the colleges in Coimbatore. We are planning to make it an annual event and organise it in a much bigger place", says V.K Aravind, Chairman of Executive Excellence (EXE-XL), an association formed by the under-graduate management students of the college.

Though it was their first attempt, their inexperience hardly showed.

The theatre like atmosphere created by the team that displayed the Rolls Royce brand was exhilarating.

The latest information about new-make Wagon-R from the Maruti cart further increased visitors' interest in cars.

Likewise, different models from TVS, Honda and Bajaj were on display. They were even offered for test drives and the college students made the best of the opportunity to learn about the new products on offer. Each group comprised five students, who pooled in money to design and build stalls.

The art of selling

They also visited various distributors in the city to learn more about the product. They learnt the `art of selling' in the process.

Says V. Prasuj, a first year student, "We have already given three orders for Honda bikes. Actually this exhibition is not for selling. It is only to give an outlook about brands. But in the process, we have picked up selling tricks and marketing trends."

S. SUJATHA

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