PUNE, INDIA, September 30, 2008
/24-7PressRelease/ -- The annual marketing symposium in SCMHRD is an opportunity for the students to gather knowledge about the latest trends in marketing and meet the stalwarts from the industry. This year, marketing club of SCMHRD had taken up "Luxury marketing" as its focus. Luxury, being a very elusive concept, has not been touched by B-Schools in India. But SCMHRD, being the pioneer it is, has broached this concept, which has tremendous potential to be explored in India.
The SIC campus auditorium decked up in gauze and floral luxury, rolled out its red carpet for the symposium. The two day symposium started off on 26th September in the august presence of the torch-bearer of the Indian education, Dr.S.B.Majumdar, the president and founder- director of Symbiosis society, Dr.Vidya Yeravdekar, joint director of Symbiosis society, and Dr.M.S.Raste, Vice chancellor of SIU. Dr.Majumdar was delighted with the innovative topic for the symposium and congratulated the Marketing club, SCMHRD for the work well done. Dr.K.S.Subramanian, Director, SCMHRD, also congratulated the club for their initiative and gave an introduction to Luxury Marketing.
The first distinguished speaker for the day was Ms.Radha Chadha, founder of Chadha Strategy Consulting, Honk Kong, an alumnus of IIM-A and the author of the no.3 bestseller book in its category on Amazon.com- "The cult of Luxury brands- Inside Asia's love affair with luxury". The presentation gave a bird's eye view of the various nations in Asia namely Japan, China, India, Honk-Kong etc and their obsession with luxury brands.
Next was a presentation by SCMHRD students (Upendra and Shevaita) on the meaning of luxury to high - income earning professionals. Stressed out professionals felt that even time spent on a clean beach without any mobile network amounted to luxury!
On this note Mr. Shiv Sethuraman, group CEO TBWA India, an industry veteran, having worked on accounts such as Nestle and Louis Vuitton gave his presentation on the "Journey" campaign for Louis Vuitton (with the startling Mikhail Gorbachev as one of its icons). His presentation focused on communicating luxury, how shops are designed, how the magazines influence the industry, how the advertisements are designed, how the brand selects its ambassadors etc.
The afternoon session started with the address by Ms.Binita Cooper, Director, Luxury Brands- L'Oreal. The presentation explained how L'Oreal positions and communicates its high end products to the customers. A few 'yet-to-be-launched' clippings of Ralph Lauren advertisements made the students understand how the exclusivity of the product is conveyed effectively.
Another illustrious name, Ms.Alpana Parida, Head - Marketing & Merchandising, Tanishq delivered her presentation on how Indian women turning bold, articulate and expressive has given Tanishq an opportunity to satiate their needs in terms of modern, trendy and statement-making fashion jewellery. In a nation where 11% of the households account for 76% of the diamonds sold, the luxury segment in Indian jewellery is growing at the rate of 15% per annum. While Tanishq has not catered to this segment so far, Ms.Parida said that the company is definitely on the look out to enter this segment at the right time, in the right way.
The first speaker on day 2 was Mr.Pradeep Lokhande, Founder of Rural Relations. His presentation was an eye-opener for everyone who thought that the purchasing power of India lies in its cities. The 15 crore affluent rural population is brand aware and is willing to spend money on the brands they trust.
Mr.Anurag Mehrotra, Head- Wealth Management, Edelweiss Securities, came next to talk about luxury in financial services. Such services are targeted at high net worth individuals (HNWI) and India has shown the highest growth in the number of HNWIs in the past, making it ideal for such targeted and exclusive services. Luxuries in financial services, as he mentioned, can be as simple as maintaining the confidentiality of the clients one interacts with, to something as exotic as sponsoring them to the Olympics opening ceremony in a private jet.
Tag Heuer, the signature watch of the Bollywood Badshah, is not new to many of us. But what was new was the how the watchmaker division of LVMH made inroads in India, making it the fourth largest Swiss watch brand in the country. Ms.Manmeet Vohra, Marketing Director, Tag Heuer India, presented us with the exciting growth story of the brand and how the company made the right moves by partnering up idols like Shah Rukh Khan , Sushmita Sen to more recently, Priyanka Chopra.
The afternoon session was started by Mr. Romel Bhog, CEO HDIL Leisure, who broached the topic of developing a Luxury Service Mindset. He elaborated on the factors of providing luxury service such as selfless factor, care and appreciation factor, above and beyond factor etc. He also stated that developing a mindset starts right from hiring the right staff for a brand to having a vision of "looking from outside".
Next, Ms. Shaziya Khan, Strategic Planning Director- JWT, graced the stage to present the bird of gold - India and its scope in luxury today. She introduced 4 new C's of luxury marketing , namely class, code, cost benefit and celebrity. She observed that for India, it's the visible class that will be the most important luxury market accelerator. She also illustrated some unique features of the Indian luxury market such as cost benefit mindset. The most delicate issue in luxury marketing is dealing with the paradox of selling more of a product while retaining its aura and according to Ms. Khan maintaining an intellectual and cultural difference is the key to solving this paradox. She left the podium with a success formula - "Cracking the luxury code of a country is a quest for information that leads luxury marketing to success". Her parting words were - "never shed daylight upon magic. Keep the mystery and let luxury be unfamiliar".
The last speaker of the symposium was Ms. Devyani Raman, CEO and partner of The Leading Brands of the World and CEO of Luxury Marketing Council-India. In her unique style she conducted an interactive session with the audience and created an impromptu power point presentation using the inputs given by the audience. Ms. Raman's spot-quizzing lead to comprehensive answers to questions like:
"What does luxury mean to you? "
"Does the business of luxury seek a market or does a market seek luxury?"
"Is India ready for luxury? Why or why not?"
"Who do you think is buying into luxury in India?"
"What do you think are the top 3 luxury market challenges and opportunities?"
"Can you accelerate the growth of luxury in India?"
SCMHRD had also conducted a paper presentation contest on the topic "Luxury Marketing - Past, Present and Future trends: Automobile Sector". The response was overwhelming with 104 teams submitting their papers, out of which, 4 best teams were called to present their paper during the symposium. The teams short listed for the finals were SPJain, NITIE, MDI and TAPMI. Nitie was adjudged as the best, winning them a cash prize of Rs. 12000 with TAPMI, a close second, winning a cash prize of Rs. 7000.
This was followed by a panel discussion consisting of the who's who of Pune city like Mrs. Usha Kakade, Dr and Mrs. Bhosle, Dr. Anita Phadnis, Mr. Jayesh Gadekar and Dr. Gadekar who were joined by Mr. Romel Bhog and Ms. Devyani Raman to discuss on the topic - understanding and identifying the luxury consumer in India. The discussion concluded on the note that luxury is very subjective and personalized. Its definition varies from person to person depending on his income group, generation and social setting.
The concluding remarks for the symposium were given by Dr. K.S Subramanian, Director SCMHRD, who expressed his gratitude to the main sponsors of the symposium, the Sanjay Kakade group, for their contribution in making the event a grand success. He also congratulated the students of SCMHRD and marketing club for hosting the innovative and challenging concept of luxury marketing. The vote of thanks was delivered by Ms. Pratima Shorey, Head of centre of excellence, Marketing. The students of SCMHRD left the marketing symposium with the new knowledge and the luxury of listening to such great speakers.
The concluding remarks for the symposium were given by Dr. K.S Subramanian, Director SCMHRD, who expressed his gratitude to the main sponsors of the symposium, the Sanjay Kakade group, for their contribution in making the event a grand success. He also congratulated the students of SCMHRD and marketing club for hosting the innovative and challenging concept of luxury marketing. The vote of thanks was delivered by Ms. Pratima Shorey, Head of centre of excellence, Marketing. The students of SCMHRD left the marketing symposium with the new knowledge and the luxury of listening to such great speakers.
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- hdil, heuer, jwt, luxury, management, marketing, mba, mdi, nitie, pune, scmhrd, symbiosis, symposium, tag, tapmi, tbwa
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