Chennai says ‘Hi’ to Cannes!!!

Fridays have always been a day that I ve looked forward to since the day i joined CBS..Initially it was for the reason that it was signified the end of a week...but of late it has been for the Guest lectures that I get to attend ..The kind of knowledge and information that one gets by listening and interacting with them is worth cherishing..

One such instance was the rendezvous with Ms.Saroja Kannan..an entrepreneur, who runs an organisation that serves online tutors helping students in their academic challenges.

Her Company, TutorVista , provides online support through tutors who attend children calling from across the world to help them resolve their queries regarding academics.

Saroja Kannan possesses a wonderful portfolio when it comes to managing her career. After having worked in the marketing Stream for 5.5 years ,she started her own firm that was a pioneer in applying the concept of direct marketing .Her first clients were Standard Chartered Bank and American Express, for whom they started providing information from the customer feedback about their Banks. This helped them profile their customers on a longer period of time and create a database from which they could target customers according to their services provided.

It was quite an experience to know what direct marketing meant from the person who successfully applied it. But the best part of the lecture was yet to come....I was waiting to hear from the horse’s mouth about her experience in Cannes ,where she won the award for a pathbreaking Ad .

Without testing your patience I ll get into it right away. This was during her stint with Ogilvy, where she was handed over the responsibility of the Chennai Office. It was also the time when RPG mobile was at its peak in providing mobile connections to chennaites. Airtel had already established itself as a big market player by then. Hutch was entering the Chennai market and it had these challenges to encounter.

So the stage was set...The way she went ahead promoting Hutch through the creative Ad that targeted the crème da la creme of the city is awe inspiring. With a time span of 48hrs to convince the Head of Hutch, Chennai region with an interesting Ad concept was not a joke by any means. Having done all this , the real challenge was in getting the idea executed without leaving any loose end was just out of the world.

The idea of targeting the cream of the society formed the crux of the promotion. With a list of nearly 2000 top personalities of Chennai, it was made sure that every person received a personalised Economic Times paper. This came as a pleasant surprise to each of these personalities and made an impact right away across the fraternity..

Her way of saying ‘Hi’ to the city was acknowledged by the jury at Cannes, which awarded her “The Golden Lion” trophy .This apparently was also the first time any Ad agency from this part of the country had won anything like this.

Never knew addressing in English had so much value in life...jokes apart,It was quite an interesting insight into one’s career ,which has been an exciting one from the word Go....

These wonderful people and their experiences are the ones that make Life really interesting and exciting at CBS....Looking forward to some more of them....After all, Dil Maange More.....

By Pradeep ,Marcom Varsity ,CBS