The first event of the academic year, the Fachcha brand quiz “Prarambh”, was back with a bang at IIM-A. Organized by Niche – the marketing club of IIM A – to give the fachchas the first flavor of marketing and brands, it was held on Monday, 2nd July 2012.
Sponsored by Airtel, it has traditionally been touted as one of most competitive of contests on campus. Prarambh was fuelled by a huge promotion boost with frequent pre-event mailers and posters at prominent hang-out places like the Nescafe outlet, the classroom corridors, etc. The added attraction was the prize money on offer – Rs. 20,000.
The turnout for the event was overwhelming with as many as 60 three membered teams taking part in the preliminary round, which was more than half the batch!
The chief quiz master was Kishore Seetharam, also a member of the LSD – the main quizzing club on campus. The questions were essentially centred around major brands, brand logos, marketing trends, products and rarely known yet interesting facts about them. Even the seemingly tough questions were workout-able, and the answers to unanswered questions led to teams exclaiming how they had missed such ‘sitters’.
The enthusiasm of the participant fachchas was really encouraging to see, irrespective of their responses to the questions, as they learned something new with each question. The logic behind some of the brands and campaigns impressed one and all. As the answers were announced, some goodies were also distributed to select people in the large audience.
The top 6 teams went into the next round. For some other teams it was a case of so near yet so far. To ensure that such teams did not go home disappointed, the next rounds were organized in such a way that the teams on the fringes could also compete with the top 6 teams. And if the fringe teams had a superior performance, they could knock off one of the top teams and earn a wildcard entry. Some of the fringe teams/audience who could get the answers also received vouchers, sponsored by Airtel.
This was an entirely new concept and it ensured that the audience strength, participation and enthusiasm remained almost the same.
The competition for the next rounds was just as hectic as the preliminary round with each team in close pursuit of the other. In the end, after a grueling 1 and a half hours of multiple rounds, there emerged 3 worthy winner teams.
The First Prize was bagged by Achyuth Sanjay, Anubhav Bhattacharjee and Arjun Bharadwaj
The Second place went to MVR Murthy, Krittika Adhikary and Vinayak Sapru
The team which finished third was Sachin Bhardwaj, S. Aditya and Chandrasekaran K.
With quizzing of the highest quality and an overwhelmingly high and enthusiastic response from the best brains of the country, “Prarambh” concluded successfully giving the incoming batch more than an insight into the world of brands and marketing.
Inside IIMA 