Like many other 90s kids a.k.a millennials, I, too, have grown up watching Hollywood movies and was obsessed with their food and clothes! Born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, I didn’t have much opportunity to explore or live out my American fantasy in my teenage years. In 2010, Forever 21 opened its first store in India and for the next 6 years, they were only in 3 cities across India; Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. I shopped when I travelled but it still felt out of reach. It only took Aditya Birla Group one year to open up a store in my hometown. A forever21 store was launched in Indore in December, 2017 after ABG’s acquisition of the brand’s online and offline rights, in 2016. The effect doesn’t curtail only to my life, but ABG recognised a potential customer base in a place not explored by a lot of other big brands, thereby raising everyone’s standard of living in the city. For that, I thank ABG, for myself and my city.
Cellular network, Idea’s varied attractive ad campaigns are very well known and has affected all of us. Be it the “walk and talk” campaign, or us dancing to the tunes of “honey bunny”. I remember getting my first phone at the time and all the cellular service providers, were charging the same and the competition was stiff, a typical saturated-market situation, and there it was, Idea’s honey bunny campaign which swayed me towards buying the same.
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I am a commerce graduate while my whole family is involved with medicines and hospitals if not a doctor. Referencing the stereotype, it was hard; from the beginning. Not choosing to be a doctor welcomed all kinds of doubts, one at a time, in my 18-year-old brains. I started pursuing Chartered Accountancyafter school. It was a challenge since the start, I had no guidance or support and the course didn’t offer a guaranteed degree. I cleared the first two levels and began my articleship. It was a three-year investment with another exam waiting at the end of that. I was confident of my abilities and so I jumped into it against all advices. Bottom line from those years is I worked hard, I was committed and completed tasks dedicatedly, I learnt a lot but… I didn’t like the work. And I didn’t want to end up in a 9-5 job that I didn’t like. That’s when I decided to do MBA. I completed my internship, prepared for MBA and got into XIMB. The goal is to equip myself with knowledge and skills so as to end up in a job that I like working at, that I look forward to every morning.
