Alokananda Chakraborty
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Promo Power 2003 ends with a trip to Ansal Plaza, Delhi

The last day of the two-day seminar, Promo Power 2003, ended befittingly in the field of action – amidst shoppers at Ansal Plaza, Delhi’s busiest shopping mall, and a microcosm of the trends in the city

The last day of the two-day seminar, Promo Power 2003, ended befittingly in the field of action - amidst shoppers at Ansal Plaza, Delhi's busiest shopping mall, and a microcosm of the trends in the society. Before the delegates left the premises of Park Royal, Nehru Place (where the event was being held), for Ansal Plaza they went through two interactive sessions during the day on how, for specific areas and age groups, below-the-line activities are better suited to get the desired results.

Dawn Baskin, account director, Zipatoni, started Day 2 of the seminar with his workshop Cracking Gen Y. Baskin talked about the mindset of today's young adults and how understanding that mindset can help marketers crack the right strategy to connect with them. For instance, this target group, aged between eight and 23 years, does not like to read and TV frustrates them.

Baskin drew the attention of marketers to some of the aspects that underline the behaviour of Gen Y. This is what Baskin observes about Gen Y: "Show respect to them and it will be reciprocated with respect, be a resident of cool, practice ‘Metopia' (In other words, Let me make it mine, What I do, not Who I am... Or where I come from…)" Baskin outlined how marketers can reach out to this generation with the help of "new ideas". "Companies with a philosophy, multisensory experiences, messages that acknowledge they're smart, fun, interesting people with a sense of community" are best suited to vibe with this generation, he said.

Baskin's one-and-a-half-hour presentation was followed by the dos and the don'ts in in-school marketing, which also included a study done by Kids-Link, the Consumer Insights division of Kidstuff, which organised the seminar. The findings from this study conducted across Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai in January and February, 2003, offered interesting insights to Indian marketers on how to organise promotions targeting school kids. For example, dance competition is the favorite event of the school kids. Computers and cycles are their dream prizes and among the best gift products are cricket bats and watches.

This presentation was followed by one on how emerging industries such as insurance, healthcare, telecommunications and financial services can contribute to promotional marketing. Currently, the size of promo marketing in India is Rs 1,500 crore, in which rural marketing contributes Rs 600 crore, events and promotions make for Rs 700 crore, while the remaining Rs 200 crore comes from other promotional activities. For this market to grow, experiential marketing and the use of new media - Internet and mobile phones - have to play a significant role.

Finally, it was time for the delegates to take a break from the seven-hour workshop and step out of the venue to tour Ansal Plaza and do some trend spotting. The delegates were assigned the task of observing people of all age groups and observe their browsing behaviour in stores other than immediate purchase areas (cafes, corridors), their shopping bags and show windows to spot anything that suggests a new or an unusual trend. © 2003 agencyfaqs!

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