At the stroke of midnight on 10th November, 2016 the marketing club launched GodSellers 6.0 with a firecracker display and a small teaser video. They marketed the launch in the campus and invited students to the quadrangle at 12 am for a surprise. They had set up stalls to sell items to give people a taste of what they could from the day of the event. In the absence of high denomination currency notes, cashless wallet transactions were deployed to save the day. In addition to the apprehensions about attendees not having enough cash to pay for delicacies and splurge on games, the Marketing Club members had to engage in eleventh hour firefighting on myriad other fronts as well: a liquidity crunch not only meant that there wasn’t enough change to return to students but also that there wasn’t enough cash to pay vendors who did not accept card payments. The first problem was solved by reducing the inventory after negotiating with the vendors; the second problem was solved by scouring the campus for any amount of currency to compensate the vendors. With a little luck, and pounds of grit and assiduous hard work, the launch was successful.
The auction that was organised on 12th November was a surreal experience, to say the least. None of the participating teams seemed to hold back; the eye-popping bids far exceeded the collection in the previous years. The last stall led to a bidding war between two teams, with neither team backing down. High bids for stalls placed the onus of drawing out significant numbers for the event on the Marketing Club. This development mandated extensive in-house and external marketing: campus ambassadors were appointed to put up fliers and other promotional material in other institutes of Shillong.
With the event scheduled to take place on 19th November, the build-up could not have been more fascinating. The participating teams promoted their stalls in ingenious ways; it’s safe to say that the campus was gripped by the GodSellers fever. From free food sampling, barbeques, musical chairs, discount-coupon balloons, the participants did it all. Come the day of GodSellers, the campus was in a frenzy with management students running around trying to find utensils to cook in, trying to figure out the right mix of spices for their broths, chopping meat, et.al. The event started at 6:30 pm and witnessed participation from various colleges such as NIFT, NIT, NEIGHRIMS, St. Anthonys and St. Edmunds. The stalls were decorated in accordance with the theme of the event, with each stall named after a comic character. The students deployed a plethora of techniques, ranging from enticing discounts against bulk orders to dynamic pricing, all with the objective of pushing sales numbers. With music, food, bonfire, games, and the English Premier League in the background, GodSellers 6.0 witnessed over a 20 percent increase in revenues from the previous years and was a grand success.
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About the Author:
Venkat Ravitej Vadlamani (Member, Marketing Club, IIM Shillong)
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