AdAsia 2003: Special rates for academicians announced

With registrations for the forthcoming Asian advertising congress - AdAsia 2003 - picking up, the Planning Committee for AdAsia 2003 has announced a special rate for academicians interested in attending the prestigious biannual event being held in Jaipur, Rajasthan, from November 10-14. Open only to faculty members and students of "recognized academic institutions", the special registration rate has been fixed at Rs 5,000 per participant for the entire package (dinner invitation not included), as opposed to the regular rate of Rs 30,000 (Rs 25,000 under the early-bird discount scheme, which ends on October 10) per participant.

"This special academic rate is open only to 100 lucky faculty member and students, and will be handed out on a first-come-first-served basis," says Ramesh Narayan, managing director, Canco Advertising, and chairman, Planning Committee, AdAsia 2003. "These 100 academicians will be seated in a hall which will have a live feed from the auditorium, so that they get a ringside view of everything that would be happening within the auditorium. Plus, they would be invited for the lunches we are hosting, so that they can interact with our lineup of speakers and the 1,000-odd delegates who would be attending the event."

Explaining the Planning Committee's thinking behind the move, Narayan says, "Our objective is fairly simple. Having brought the congress to India after two decades and having drawn up such an impressive list of speakers, we felt it would be a great shame if faculty members and students of our premier academic institutions didn't benefit from it. So we thought of giving this community an opportunity to attend the event. We hope to give academicians an exposure to some of the best thinking in the advertising and marketing disciplines. Also, faculty members and students don't get a lot of exposure to industry interaction, so this is a good opportunity as delegates from the best corporate houses would be at AdAsia. We are sure that this would be a great learning experience for academicians." For the record, registration forms for the special rates are available with the Bombay Ad Club. Those interested can call Bipin on (022) 23894091 or (022) 23813034, or mail adasia2003@vsnl.net. © 2003 agencyfaqs!