Sponsors line up for B-school festivals

Corporate sponsorships for B-school festivals are set to double and almost touch the Rs 1 crore figure in 2008.

While established annual festivals of B-schools in eastern India are likely to see a 20-30 per cent increase in sponsors and sponsorships, the newer B-school fests are likely to receive double the sponsorship amounts they received last year.

Consider this: Kshitij "" the annual festival of IIT-KGP held in January every year "" is already on track to receive cumulative sponsorships worth Rs 85 lakh for its festival in January 2008.

In January 2007, Kshitij received cash sponsorship worth Rs 50 lakhs and Rs 20 lakh for gifts, offers, and the like. January 2007 had 15 key sponsors for Kshitij that included SBI, Airtel, ONGC, Cisco, among others.

For January 2008, IIT-KGP has already received close to Rs 20 lakhs from Barclays Capital, which will be the key sponsor for Kshitij in 2008.

Similarly, IIMC's annual festival, Intaglio, held in January every year, is on track to receive close to 20 per cent more sponsorships in 2008, said sources.

For January 2007, its cumulative sponsorships amounted to close to Rs 60 lakhs, where key sponsors were Airtel, the Tata Group, Reliance Communications, SBI, JP Morgan, Bloomberg, Coca Cola, ICICI and Cognizant. For Intaglio 2008, IIMC is on track to finalise approximately 15 sponsors.

At the same time, IIMC's annual cultural festival, Carpe Diem, which is held in January every year and hosts amateur rock band contests, among other cultural programmes, is also on track to receive sponsorships worth Rs 30 lakh for its festival in 2008, up from close to Rs 19 lakhs in January 2007.

The key sponsors for Carpe Diem 2007 were Levis, Vodafone, Esprit, Hero Honda, etc.

Said a source at IIMC, "Around the same time when Carpe Diem was held in January 2007, Esprit, one of our key sponsors, wanted to launch a new timewear brand. So, sponsoring an event like this, which saw footfall of at least 6,000 people, was an immediate brand building exercise and outdoor marketing for Esprit." Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) Jamshedpur could not be contacted for comment.

Sources at VGSOM revealed that the B-school's annual management festival Occasio garnered sponsorships worth approximately Rs 10 lakhs in its first year in March 2007.

Purvadaya, VGSOM's annual theme-based festival, too received sponsorships worth Rs 13 lakhs in March 2007.

Both Occasio and Purvodaya "" scheduled for March 2008 next "" have already started receiving hefty sponsorships from corporates, and by March 2008, sponsorships are expected to be double that of last year "" in the range of Rs 20-25 lakhs.

"Although Occasio and Purvadaya were both held for the first time in March 2007, we managed big sponsors like IBM, Srei, Group M, Cool Avenues, Red FM for Occasio, and SAIL, Era Constructions, ITC, WBIDC, Simplex Infrastructure for Purvadaya," said one source.

The festivals saw participation from almost all B-schools in India, and the events had several paper-presentations, panel discussions and research-based programmes. "This is the reason why we are on track for more sponsors and sponsorships this year," the VGSOM source added.

Corporates use B-school festivals to interact with students, to learn the trends in management and marketing, as well as to build their brand recall among students.

This helps the corporates find an easy opportunity to pitch to students when they come to the respective B-school campuses for recruitment. As the recall value in the minds of the students is already high, the corporates don't need to promote or explain themselves again.

Moreover, B-school festivals, which see participation from some 40-odd management institutes and some 10-odd international B-schools, provide a platform to the corporates to build their brands and is an easy opportunity for outdoor advertisement.