afaqs! Campus gives B-school students a taste of real marketing, the digital way

Students at some premier business schools have raised the bar for industry exposure when it comes to digital media and marketing by going for courses meant for corporates, by corporate faculty at afaqs! Campus.

According to industry body IAMAI, the digital media market will be worth Rs 3,500 crore by the end of 2012. However, with little by way of history, this new medium has always been a misnomer for the marketers - both budding and seasoned professionals. For leading B-schools, imparting education on the latest in digital media and marketing has been a struggle, with few really experienced faculty available.

For these schools, platforms like afaqs! Campus, with its pool of trainers from leading firms in the sector and a curriculum made for corporates, has been an opportunity to catch up with the fast evolving sector. The knowledge and training arm of afaqs!, also the leading destination in the APAC region for advertising, media and marketing professionals, has already trained more than 500 students during the eight months of its existence, along with a similar number of marketers as well.

So what attracts students where brand managers and marketers from companies such as Nestle, BBC, ICICI, CNN, Dainik Jagran, Religare, Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo, Max New York Life, Dish TV and Mudra participate?

Management students feel that the workshops help them understand the medium better. "Having workshops at B-schools is fairly important because social media is such a dynamic sphere that a dedicated professional practicing the trade acts as a valuable resource. External agencies like afaqs! Campus help in hands-on experience of the trainers and with present day case studies," says Aastha Sharma, joint secretary, placement team, FMS.

"A lot of students are particularly interested in digital marketing; external setups like afaqs! Campus add credibility to the whole engagement, thanks to the quality time with the students with the highly interactive sessions," says Arti Ganesh, student, ISB.

"Premier B-schools know today that they have to step outside the set pedagogy they have in place and have to engage with industry professionals to benefit from their experience," says Kartik Nagarajan, head, social media, GroupM, and an occasional trainer with afaqs! Campus.

According to Professor Vanita Sahay, professor of marketing, IIM Raipur, "In marketing, one of the most important 'P's is promotion. A lot of professors today think that the advent of social media is just a fad. I'm completely convinced that it's not a fad and a paradigm shift is required in the way brands need to promote their wares and reach out to the urban youth. To keep our students updated in terms of the growth and developments in the online space is pertinent for us."

afaqs! Campus has been a regular at various business schools across the country. After conducting social media marketing and digital marketing workshops in Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi University, a Facebook marketing workshop in ISB, Hyderabad and an upcoming digital marketing workshop in Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, the firm believes it has been a natural progression to engage with students.

"With leading brands taking digital marketing seriously, it is now imperative for B-schools to equip their students with the right and up-to-date digital marketing knowledge," says Kapil Ohri, head, afaqs! Campus. He adds, "Considering the fact that digital media is evolving at a break neck pace, B-school students require additional resources like workshops and industry interactions to keep themselves abreast with the digital marketing arena, other than their own digital marketing curriculum."

So how do the student workshops differ from the regular corporate workshops? For Ohri, the difference is in the approach. "With students, we obviously tend to have larger batch sizes, which demand a more group-based, shared learning approach. So case study challenges, usually from real clients being handled by our trainers, play a key role. Incredibly, it says something about the quality of the students as well as the approach that our trainers have frequently found perfectly workable options coming out of these student sessions".

For regular corporates, the company finds itself designing increasingly customised 'private' workshops as requirements evolve in that market, too. For trainers, this cycle of student workshops, followed by corporate workshops and private workshops, is almost a natural move from those keen to learn, to those who are looking to make a start in digital marketing and of course, the firms which need to take it to the next level.