LIBA’s plan for marketing

CHENNAI: The marketing club of Loyola Institute of Business Administration held the third edition of its annual disguised market research event — Libazaar, in the Loyola campus on Sunday.

Strategically placed between the various food stalls, members of the marketing club conducted surveys in the guise of games. “Turning a survey into a game is more engaging and fetches more accurate results since the subject is less inclined to lie,” said Vimal Raja, the president of the marketing club.

This year, in addition to the usual pro-music showdown, the marketing club roped in the team of a widely-popular YouTube channel, Eruma Saani, to further lure the demographic. “We do our research to pull in the crowd. Then they help us by playing ‘our games’, while they sip their mojitos and enjoy the good vibes here,” said Shwetha Priya, a member of the marketing club.

One of the games is where the subject is asked to guess the retail price of seven products. If the subject manages to more or less guess the price of at least four products, he/she gets to take home one of the products displayed. “These products have organic roots. It’s quite hard to guess to the price of a hand-woven basket or an indigenous pickle,” the organiser of the event told CE.

The marketing club claims that they have been able to generate responses from around 600 people through the course of the day-long event. “We generate a footfall of about 6,000 and one-tenth play ‘our games’,” said Vimal Raja.

By drawing in a wide demographic ranging from school kids who participate in competitions, to their parents who bring them to the venue and also the city’s college crowd, Libazaar is able to record a wide spectrum of responses.