SiD’s Sphere!!

Marketing wise, today has been a huge learning experience.

First, we had a guest speaker session in the Marketing class. We were just looking forward to a relief from the boring teacher who makes us go through uninteresting slides and expects us to have rote learned the book. One look at the guest speaker before the class began and we all had our doubts if it would really be a break from the monotonous classes. But it turned out that the person, who at first impression looked like a ‘maila’ was actually Aaroh’s guitar player who also used to be brand manager for BMW, Mini Couper, and Rolls Royce and was now the marketing manager at Indus TV. Obviously, we all voted for him to talk about BMW. This was the most interesting Marketing class in 2 months. From his experiences with celebrities like Atif Aslam to the notorious billionaires like Malik Riaz, it was all a lot of fun. According to him, there are only 5000 families or individuals in Pakistan whom the luxury automobile companies target. He also pointed out that in Karachi the niche that can afford the cars, the prices of which begin at Rs3,800,000 (yes that almost 4 million) and at an average cost Rs6,000,000, are reluctant to flaunt their wealth in this manner due to the security hazards. Lahoris, on the other hand, he categorised as ’showoffs’ and would prefer a Rolls Royce over a BMW just because ‘everyone has a BMW’. The industrialists in Sialkot and Faisalabad, he said, although much richer, prefer second hand luxury cars. The rest of the description revolved around marketing strategies, consumer preferences, and the likes.

Then, later at 3, we had a seminar which are made compulsory for the students to attend just to fill seats. But the speakers at the seminar were the Group Brand Manager of Olper’s Milk, Head of the Islamic Banking Division at Standard Chartered and Director Strategy at Contact Plus(an activation agency). Our class had been having what may be called a heated debate on Google groups about the controversial Olwel ad. We had the Brand Manager right where we wanted when he mentioned how the company uses Pakistan’s culture in all of Olper’s ads and also that they were the first ones to launch an ad exclusively for Ramadan. ‘Why not Olwel, then?’ asked a guy from our class. The whole auditorium chuckled when Mr Rafey replied that that was the only question that he had come prepared for. He then described how the Olwel ad targets a certain class or those who want to be like them. Argument accepted. A lot of people in our class, though, still believe that the brand could have done a better job if they had targeted a greater segment of the market. Presentations for all three, nonetheless, were a treat to listen in between laughing sessions at the back of the auditorium.