Statutory Warning: Hunny Bunny a part of the classroom session

With the academic session nearing its conclusion, one can always observe the shift in intensity from the time spent in attending classes to the time one spends out of it. There are multiple internal exams to be held, hundreds of lines to be written for the deluge of final assignments for every subject, viva interviews and the extra-curricular activities – all of which need to be completed in time with no delays! Then there are always a couple of subjects which particularly lag behind all others, and such is the intensity of submission dates’ announcements that one often wonders as to why he chose MBA altogether! All these activities ensure that even when we are inside the class, our minds are guaranteed to be pretty much elsewhere, and the seemingly serious subjects of the term don’t help at all. So, from the first class to the last, the mutual thought rising in every mind, irrespective of the angle, is when will the classes end!

However, not every subject is bland in MBA, especially in the first semester. For example, we have a subject called Management Trends that deals with the branding, marketing and expansion of various firms over the years. Being internal, this subject does not have much impact on what we learn overall in MBA, but the fact remains that it covers one of the most interesting topics of the first semester syllabus – companies, and their histories. Yesterday, we were shown some of the old, new and unique advertisements that have come out in the past few years. Why am I mentioning this? Because when you talk about MBA, the first few topics that come up in anyone’s mind are economics, finance and marketing. Management trends, on the other hand, gives us the opportunity to actually deviate from the morose topics of demand and supply and Kotler’s hobbies, and allows us to focus and find out the nuances behind, let’s say, the reason for making advertisements for products having no differentiation among themselves. On all accounts of pros and cons of such a subject, there is no debate about the answer to the question – which subject allows you to watch Idea Cellular’s Honey Bunny advertisement in class? In first semester, none.

So, while the Holi themed advertisement of an organisation for blind children rekindled nostalgia, the Mahabharat themed MTR Idli advertisement exploded the class into bouts of laughter. Innovation and aggression are seldom seen together in any sphere, except advertising. And it is usually the televised ones that become one of the most important media for companies to communicate and position their products among prospective customers. The motive of the session was not humour or unadulterated creativity, rather a small but critical point of how companies differentiate their products when the latter are technically the same as the opponents’. A regular marketing management class would have taken the route of heavy and demoralising (due to the tight schedule we were sticking to) assignments or presentations for the same, but in Management Trends, it was nothing but interest from the student managers. My recommendation is to watch the videos I mentioned above, and then imagine them being shown in a class. Whoever said that MBA classes were always boring?

-Abhinav Sinha