The World's Oldest Marketing Fair Turns 25 On Dec 28

The Marketing Fair, the brainchild of Dr Sharad Sarin, Head, Marketing Area, XLRI Jamshedpur and Indian Marketing guru will turn 25 come December 28. Widely acknowledged as one of India’s and XLRI’s most valuable contributions to the field of Marketing, the Fair is today an accredited market research tool. Today, it is being followed as a model by a number of premier Indian, American and European business schools.

The unique concept of The Fair has been hailed by none other than Marketing & Strategy gurus, Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School of Management, Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School and Dr Jim Nelson of the Colorado University.

Conducted and coordinated every year by MAXI, the Marketing Association of XLRI, under the aegis of Dr. Sarin, The Fair creates an entertaining and memorable experience for all participants.

The exclusivity of The Fair is maintained by having a definite focus every year. Some of the notable focus areas of earlier Fairs include children as consumers, new entrants in the Indian market, Indian women as consumers and niche product consumers.

As part of the 25th Anniversary celebration, on December 27, MAXI would felicitate its past secretaries, who have been instrumental in the evolution of The Marketing Fair to what it is today.

Corporates who have presented problems to The Marketing Fair for study till date include International Giants, the ANZ Group, Bata, Cadbury, Citibank, Coca Cola, GSK, HSBC, ICI, Nestle, Ogilvy & Mather, Procter & Gamble, Philips, Ponds, RCI, Shaw Wallace and UNICEF.

Indian Corporates who have actively participated in The Fair include Arvind Mills, Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Bharat Shell, Blowplast, Dabur, GIC, Hindustan Ciba-Geigy, HLL, HMT, HMV, ICICI, India Today, Indo-National, ITC, Marico, New India Assurance, SBI, Tata Tea, Titan, The Telegraph, and Voltas.

The companies participating this year are industry majors, ITC, Titan, Franklin Templeton Investments, Colgate Palmolive, Nestle and UTI Bank.