MAM
XLRI’s marketing fete garners over 4000 respondents
MUMBAI: .The 25th annual XLRI marketing fete , this year titled ‘Tata Indicom Maxi Fair’ held on the XLRI grounds which essentially accredits their marketing research tool as a disguised experiment technique to elicit responses from unsuspecting respondents saw its 26th enactment this year where XLRI played host to over 5000 residents of Jamshedpur.
This year, the fair saw the likes of established corporate giants like Reckitt Benckiser, Cholamandalam Insurance, Colgate- Palmolive, BPCL and Tata Indicom. A novel addition was a research problem by a renowned French fragrance company, Givoudan.
The purpose of the fair is to essentially solve a company’s market research problem using projective research technique by testing consumer behaviour. In the genial atmosphere of the fair, the respondents freely answer thereby reducing a bias toward ‘politically correct’ answers.
Over the years, XLRI has created a huge knowledge base about the lifestyle, attitudes and behaviour of the Jamshedpur population, helping them in simulating exact clusters as per the companies’ requirement. This was one of the reasons that companies with a diverse set of targets were comfortable with testing their concepts in a city like Jamshedpur.
The data collection of the identified target segment was done by personally approaching the respondents and filling up questionnaires that were designed by students themselves. Thereafter, responses that were ‘hidden’ in the previous stage were revealed by a series of games that were conceptualised to extract the relevant information. Each of the teams working for a company were allocated a stall for which they developed a theme and design games. On the day of the fair, all the entrants were profiled and sent to the stalls where they were identified as part of the target segment.
The fair this year saw a lot of imaginative themes running through, from a simulated trip aboard on an aeroplane, to rescuing a princess, to entering a television set. Cinema was a popular choice, with one stall showcasing the history of cinema and two others basin g their games on popular movies like Munnabhai MBBS and Dhoom. The profiles of the respondents included housewives, automobile owners, cellular phone users An interesting aspect to the fair this year was a BPCL problem where the marketing association had to organise and transport truck drivers across Jamshedpur. The games designed were very innovative with most of the props being made by the students themselves. In stalls where the entrant was not of the target segment, he/she was detoured to play a variety of interesting ‘dummy’ games like hoopla, darts etc where answers were not recorded.
Says MAXI secretary Ritesh Bharadwaj, “Screening, taking precious customer behaviour clues and the perceived value of gifts given by us to each and every person who enters the fair cannot be matched by any other institute. After all, XLRI is the pioneer in marketing fair”
Twenty-six years of its being in existence, the local interest remains piqued and crowds continue to pour at every marketing fair.
So where is The Fair headed towards in the days ahead? The agenda ahead is the extension of this concept to consumers below the poverty line. ‘Syndicated Marketing Fair’ is another concept in the pipeline.
The 25th anniversary celebration also witnessed the unveil of The Fair’s next logical step – ‘the Marketing Lab’. The concept is dedicated in making a clarion call to the current batch to give it shape and design it. The Lab will put to further use, the vast amount of invaluable data that is collected in The Fair, constructing an authoritative database that could be utilised for different purposes.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
