Ninth edition of Indian Magazine Congress kicks off

The theme for this year's event is 'Magazines: 2X. Engage.Connect.Work'.

The ninth edition of the Indian Magazine Congress kickstarted yesterday. The two-day is being held at Hyatt Regency, Chennai. The theme of this year's congress is 'Magazines: 2X. Engage.Connect.Work'.

It is one of the pioneer events for magazine publishing in India. The annual conference is organised by Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) and supported by the Federation of International Periodical Press (FIPP).

This is the first time that the event is being held in Chennai, to ensure more participation from South India-based publishers. The previous eight editions of the event were held alternately in Mumbai and New Delhi.

The congress brings together the entire magazine publishing fraternity including magazine publishers, policy makers, media owners, marketers, media planners and buyers, along with researchers and industry analysts, under one roof.

Spread over two days, the congress is divided into highly interactive and engaging sessions and has an impressive panel of international and national speakers to offer value to its delegates.

The speakers at this year's event inlcude Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor of Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia and Author of 'The Googlization of Everything'; Juan Senor, partner, Innovation Media Consulting Group, London and Visiting Fellow Oxford University; Jim Bilton, managing director, Wessenden Marketing, London; Chris Llewellyn, president & CEO, FIPP; D Shivakumar, chairman and CEO, Pepsico India; Girish Ramdas, CEO and co-founder Magzter; Vikas Agnihotri, industry director, Google India; Jessica Butcher, CMO, Blippar; N Ram, chairman, Kasturi & Sons and Publisher of The Hindu Group; CK Ranganathan, chairman and managing director, Cavinkare; Sathyamurthy NP, executive director, DDB Mudra and President DDB Mudra Max media; KS Rao, head, investor education and distribution development, Birla Sunlife Asset Management; Nupur Sharma, head, marketing, Cisco; Preeti Rao, segment marketing lead, Dell India, among others.

Mitrajit Bhattacharya, president, AIM and president and publisher, Chitralekha Group, says, "The purpose of AIM is to spread the cause of the magazine medium, and we feel holding the IMC in Chennai for the very first time is a big step in that direction. We are proud to present the first-ever Engagement Index at the IMC, which clearly demonstrates the efficacy of magazines vis-a-vis other media."

B Srinivasan, chairman, 9th Indian Magazine Congress and MD,Vikatan Group, says, "We are very excited that the IMC is being held in Chennai for the very first time. We have planned a lot of firsts this time. We have student delegates from premier institutions like the ACJ, MCC, MOP and Stella Maris, who will attend, tweet and produce a magazine of the two-day event. South India always posts robust growth in the magazine industry, new publishers and new titles year on year. This year, we have bolstered AIM's South Indian dialogue with at least 10 new entrants - a promise to promote divergence within. Magazines are all about engagement, so we propose to have live delegate engagement and question-answer sessions via mobile, during the IMC sessions. We want positive learnings to be dissipated and networking to be maximised through this IMC and hope Chennai will show the way forward!"

AIM had commissioned IMRB to arrive at an Engagement Index, which also will be unveiled during this IMC. This Index, decisively demonstrates, in quantitative terms, the superiority of magazines over other media on levels of engagement.

The journey of the Indian Magazine Congress began in 2005, and, since then, it has grown bigger.