MICA Ahmedabad (The School of Ideas), established in 1992 is the first residential institute in the country. It is dedicated to creating and delivering Leadership in Strategic Marketing and Communication solutions to the industry, government and community. Today, it is the alma mater of professionals, including in leadership positions, in some of the best-known companies in India and abroad. The campus is always buzzing with something new, read on to know about the latest developments, happening at MICA!

MICANS attends a Unique Workshop to Imagine an Evolving Tomorrow

Date: November 30, 2019

MICA students attended a unique workshop that helped them envision the cultural context of an evolving world. The ‘Futuring’ workshop was conducted as part of a Cultural Analysis and Application (CAA) course in collaboration with Quicksand, an interdisciplinary consultancy that works in the areas of design, innovation, and future studies.

‘Futuring’ is a field of study that uses systematic processes for thinking, picturing possible outcomes and planning for the future. A total of 67 students of second-year attended the workshop and learned about the importance of this area through speculative design and trend forecasting. They used various tools to synthesize futures and present trend outcomes. The students worked on various themes such as food, technology, fashion, and media to imagine their futures. 

Speaking about the course, Bikram Bindra, course facilitator said, “With the minutiae of everyday business often taking up so much time in the corporate world, there is increasingly a need to focus on the bigger picture and step back to see how our larger cultural context is shaping the world. Future studies is an important discipline that enables business leaders to design, innovate and be prepared for not just an unpredictable today, but also an evolving tomorrow.” 

Prof. Pooja Thomas, course facilitator said, “MICA has always used cultural understanding as a formidable tool in understanding consumer contexts. In fact, our core courses in the first year build on their abilities to read culture for marketing. This course sharpens this by giving students industry facing methods, approaches, and attitudes as well as the experience of applying it in a live industry case.” 

To define, futurists are people who actively view the present world as a window on possible future outcomes. They watch trends and try to envision what might happen. This is a skill that has immense importance in today’s evolving world for businesses.

In the end, Shriraj Mukherjee, a 2nd-year student said, “The workshop was a great cultural tool to a business managers arsenal, especially while designing for futures - products, experiences or even imagining what the future will look like and what kind of events/actions might lead us there. As an industry professional, one is preoccupied with immediate situations and such a toolkit will help one to anticipate upcoming threats/disruptions/opportunities which might be hard to detect otherwise.”

MICANS wins 1 lakh at a National-level competition

Date: November 25, 2019

Second-year students of MICA have emerged as national winners of a competition organized by the Titan Company Ltd. The winners Sayantan Guha and Pranav Joshi from ‘Team Mosaic’ won a cash prize of INR 1 lakh and pre-placement interview offer of Titan Elevate 6.0 competition. They were asked to propose a case study solution on ‘Digital Disruption for Titan.’ 

The six qualifying teams including MICA, XLRI, IIM Ranchi, NITIE, IMT Ghaziabad, and SCMHRD, Pune decide on the digital trends and strategies for Titan. The preliminary round was a campus round, based on their submissions, 6 teams were shortlisted and were selected as campus winners across all B-schools. The semi-finals happened in the “Integrity” campus of Titan in Bengaluru and finals were held at Oterra Hotel, Bengaluru. The final round involved presenting the case to the panel and was followed by a detailed question and answer round. 

When asked about the experience in the face of stiff competition, Sayantan Guha, a second-year student said, “It was a great learning opportunity because we got an opportunity to visit the Titan office and had an interactive session on Digital with Mr. Krishnan Venkateswaran, the Chief Digital Officer of Titan. The mentors assigned to us gave us a good perspective on the business of Titan and how the business really works. We knew the finals were going to be tough battling it out with the top colleges but perhaps the belief in our idea made us get through all the nervousness.”

The judging panel included senior management of Titan comprising of Mr. Krishnan Venkateswaran, the Chief Digital Officer at Titan, Mrs. Suparna Mitra, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Watches and Accessories division and others.

Eminent Ad-maker and Film Director R. Balki visit MICA

Date: November 21, 2019

MICA recently organized an annual marketing festival namely MICANVAS showcasing all aspects of marketing and branding. The inaugural guest session was kicked off by the presence of a well-known film director and Ad-man, R Balki. He is famous for his movies like Cheeni Kum, Paa, Padman, Mission Mangal, and some iconic advertising campaigns

While interacting with the students, Balki said, “Do not force the weight of having a “noble cause” onto brands - sometimes they just cannot take the weight and will fall flat in the desperation of corporates to be associated with doing something good. The consumers may not see the nobility – the company only sees it! Let brands do the work of brands!” He jokingly called himself a culprit of starting the social media advertising in India and mentioned that there is a race of corporates and brands to associate with a cause or a noble action “as everyone wants to be seen doing good.”

Reminiscing his days at Mudra Advertising Agency that led to the formation of MICA (formerly known as Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad) he said, “I was a MICAn before MICA and my connection with MICA is very deep. I was possibly in the first-ever batch to get trained in creative advertising conducted by Mudra. No one believed that advertising people could be trained. Mr. AG Krishnamurthy got the idea of building MICA and his vision founded MICA.”

Shedding light on one of his most successful ad campaigns ‘Daag Ache Hai’, he said, “It was a strategy that came about when someone with a very confident personality will always praise his enemy. To celebrate its biggest competition ‘dirt’, the brand invited people with a tagline ‘Daag Acche Hai’ as the brand was confident of its abilities.” On a concluding note, he told the students to be aware of what is coming at them. “Content is intimidating. Do not let watching overpower your creativity. Be aware of what is coming at you.”

MICANS Gift Colourful Walls to Telav School Children

Date: October 24, 2019

This Diwali, students of MICA, Ahmedabad beautified the walls of a government secondary school in Telav. As part of their social service, Jagriti, the student-run social service wing of MICA that promotes social service and societal marketing, took up an initiative to paint the walls of Telav Secondary School, located near the campus.

A total of 25 students from first-year and second-year post-graduate program volunteered for the activity. The students painted the pillars that lie on the exterior of the school building, outer walls as well as three classrooms.

A first-year student Akriti Ananya, also a member of Jagriti said, "As part of their CSR activity, Indigo Paints provided us with the colors and brush. We had floated a form for the students to participate in the activity and took care of other logistics like transport, food, etc for the students."

Bharatbhai Patel, Principal, Telav Secondary School said, "We had not informed the students about such an initiative. When they saw the school and classrooms painted the next day, they were surprised and overwhelmed. The wall that they liked the most had a depiction of natural disaster."

Speaking about the process, a first-year student and a member of Jagriti, Siddharth Chauhan said, "The principal was extremely helpful and extended his support for the initiative. Since it is a secondary school, he was wanting the walls to be informative so we painted walls on the themes of the solar system, natural disasters, water cycle, global warming, to name a few. He wanted the walls to add value to the learning of the students." 

MICA hosts an Interactive session with COO OF IndiaMART

Date: October 14, 2019

MICA hosted Mr. Dinesh Gulati, Chief Operating Officer, IndiaMART at the campus recently. An interacting session with the agenda of “Make Doing Business Easy” was organized by MICA Leadership Series (MLS). Mr. Gulati, with a career spanning over 7 years at IndiaMART, has been responsible for overall customer delight, people efficiency and setting out core strategies for the organization. 

He commenced his talk by enlighting the students about the business ecosystem and how digital exploration has allowed both small and large businesses to explore this arena. Speaking about the content, He said “To make content go viral it has to be creative and not expensive. Video is becoming an indomitable tool across the industry and a combination of videos and vernacular content can help businesses to expand to small tier cities”.

Sharing his journey, he talked about how IndiaMART has become a one-stop solution for both small and large entrepreneurs to make their products available online. He also emphasized on Democratisation of opportunities with India being one of the world’s highest data consumption country creating a wonderful ecosystem for the businesses. 

His parting words were “IndiaMART is a two-way marketplace allowing a direct interaction for both buyers and sellers on the platform creating a community and networking effect”. The session was concluded with a vote of thanks by Mr. Vaneet Chhibber, Professor and Associate Dean, Marketing and External Relations, MICA.

MICANS win National B-School Competition

Date: August 27, 2019

MICA, Ahmedabad, India’s premier institute for Strategic Marketing and Communications found itself on a celebratory high, winning a national B-school competition launched by MNC Ab InBev. In an intense power-packed grand finale held in Bengaluru, the team, comprising second-year MICA students Jeffrey A. Modak, Samriti Goel and Vivek Jayakumar emerged victorious, battling it out against four teams from 3 B-schools that include Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) New Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kozhikode, with their winning concept.

The nationwide B-school competition, in its first-ever iteration, saw applications from 20 top MBA colleges in India, receiving over 6000 team registrations, 2200 team applications, and 1100 Round 1 submission. Students were asked to choose one challenge out of the three given by the company focussing on marketing, strategy and sustainability functions while creating concepts.

Speaking about the same, Jeffrey Modak, a second-year student said, "We did a market analysis and saw the potential for a blue ocean strategy (creating an uncaptured market) in developing a premium customizable product." 

The team name – Corona Pyaar Hai, a reference to AB InBev’s in-house brand Corona, generated a lot of buzz among the jury, dignitaries, and guests in attendance. A perfect mix of wit and the sound business strategy worked in favor of the team, as they presented their bold, unique and disruptive the finale. The winners bagged a cash award of Rs. 1,50,000 and a golden chance at interviewing for the coveted Global Management Trainee (GMT) program.

The judges panel comprised of high-profile industry stalwarts - Ben Verhaert, Business Unit President, AB InBev South Asia, Vibha Paul Rishi, Former Executive Director (Global), Pepsi, presently a board member of Tata Chemicals, Taj Hotels, Asian Paints and ICICI Bank and Dr. AK Siva Kumar, Professor for Public Policy at Kennedy School at Harvard University and former member of National Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.