Campus fests add spice to youth power

FEW years ago, it was about fun, a welcome break from studies and time for some camaraderie among students. But rising corporate interests and growing youth power are increasing scale, raising stakes and adding colours and flavours to the campus festivals across the country. Whether it’s IIMA’s Chaos, Unmaad at IIMB, IITM’s Saarang, IIT Kharagpur’s Spring Fest, Malhar of St Xavier’s, Mumbai, or IIMC’s Carpe Diem, corporates are eager to keep their date with the latest culfest. Be it Levis, Hutch, Motorola, Hero Honda, Radio Mirchi, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Esprit, ABV, Philips or Cafe Coffee Day, firms are hitching a ride onto the fest bandwagon. The increased interest and swelling sponsorships are translating into growing budgets. At IIML, Manfest 2006 saw a budget increase from Rs 33 lakh to Rs 63 lakh. IIMC fest saw a jump of 50% while sponsorships at IIMA grew from Rs 30 lakh to over Rs 40 lakh. The budget for XLRI Jamshedpur’s Ensemble 2007, too, grew by 60% to Rs 16 lakh this year. Sponsorship for IITB’s MoodI went up from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 75 lakh this year while IITD’s Rendezvous collected Rs 35-40 lakh. Companies are exploring multiple ways for beefing up industry-academia partnerships. Festivals offer an ideal alliance platform. These events present an ideal opportunity for companies to target students as potential consumer and build brand relationships. “Most companies invest in our festival because we are able to deliver such a sharply-defined target segment in such large numbers that it makes perfect advertising ROI sense for them to invest in our festival,” says Vinay Singh, cultural secretary, students affairs council, IIMB. Sumit Kulkarni, events coordinator of IIMC fest, feels such events represent a great marketing avenue for youth-oriented brands. Student participation in these festivals has been rising. “Two years ago, the number of participants in Chaos was over 500. It’s growing by over 20-25% every year,” says Ravi Srinivasan, secretary, Chaos 2007. Whereas earlier, Chaos only had students from leading management, design and technology schools, now even government colleges are participating in the event. IIMC fest registered over 5,000 footfalls this year while XLRI fest had participation from 33 B-schools, up from only 15 last year. IITB’s MoodI saw the student turnout hit the 55,000-plus mark this year, compared to 50,000 last year. IITD fest pulled in close to 15,000 students, with the maximum crowd-puller being the pronite. Kaushik Ghosh, head, marketing Radio Mirchi, said: “These fests are a major youth connect platform. It gives us a chance to be visible which could be done in various ways like becoming the media partner, conducting quiz competitions and so on.” The firm uses 30-40 colleges to connect with the youth.