The annual event will showcase the effectiveness of marketing success stories in India. Participation is open to business, government and non-government organisations across the country. Participants would need to submit a paper on any marketing initiative or strategy that either solved a business problem or successfully tapped a market opportunity. The last date for receipt of entries by post and email is today 24 December 2003.

The final event is scheduled to take place at the SPJIMR auditorium on 7 February 2004. The jury would include leaders from the industry and academia. They include management consultant Rama Bijapurkar, Bennett Coleman & Co director Bhaskar Das and ACNeilsen ORG-Marg MD Partha Rakshit.

Participating teams would need to provide a background about the organisation, the problem and opportunity in consideration, the marketing initiative and its rationale, followed by a description of the implementation process. The paper should give measurable results and an analysis of the impact made by the marketing initiative over and above the influencing factors. The analysis should preferably provide a comparison of the before and after the situation.

Any number of teams comprising of between one to three members can take part from one organisation. The number of entries is restricted to one per team. All members could be from the same organisation or could be a mix of representatives from the organisation and the advertising/research agency involved in the marketing initiative on which the paper is based.

The entries received by SPJIMR will be screened following which three to five entries will be short-listed. The short listed teams would be required to make their presentations at the Institute in the presence of the panel of judges. The team selected by the jury will be awarded the SPJIMR Marketing Impact Trophy and a cash prize of Rs 51,000. All short-listed entries would be compiled into an annual publication by the institute.