Great Lakes Institute of Management leaves no stone unturned in ensuring that students are not only introduced academic concepts, but also real world scenarios at a very early stage. They get the opportunity to meet achievers who have contributed to the industry at large and learn a great deal from them. The Spartans – the PGPM Batch at Great Lakes, Gurgaon, this year – had the privilege of interacting with Mr. Julius Augustine, the Vice President of Kantar. Mr. Augustine was here with a platter of marketing concepts and the students were all set to gain a broader picture of their theoretical learning.
Mr. Julius started off his career as a Senior Research Executive at Mudra Communications where he performed customized research for brands such as Rasna, HLL, P&G, and Reliance Industries. He then joined ORG-MARG (now AC Nielsen) and spearheaded the Client Servicing portfolio for Media clients. He has also served as the Associate Vice President for Hansa Research Group wherein, he was responsible for Business Development and Client Servicing. He then served as the Associate Director & Country Manager for Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Julius has serviced clients such as Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, ICICI Bank, Reliance Communications, Fame Adlabs, Piaggio, etc. Presently, Mr. Augustine is heading the Coca-Cola India and Havells accounts at Kantar, working towards Brand Communication, and Creative & Media Consulting.
The session was extensively insightful for the upcoming Management Professionals, as it was fascinating to walk through topics such as Market Safety, Market Research, Segmentation, Micro-Management, Customer Retention, and Branding. What made the session more engaging was hearing about his experiences with organizations such as Coca-Cola, Swiggy, Amazon, and other high performing organizations.
Mr. Augustine took the students through the age-old debate of marketing being an art or science, while we drew parallels of marketing with religion as leveraged by marketers, and how segmentation of groups for market development is prevalent within the demographics of India. To quote Mr. Augustine, “Marketing is the antithesis of Religion, you need to desire religion and hence you need to market religion.”
While addressing the importance of good advertisements that please masses in general, he made sure the students learnt to appreciate the aesthetics of acceptability – the underlying art of marketing. He explained how, during the content creation for an advertisement, facial detectors track reactions of the people to whom the content is being showcased. He displayed and described the example of the latest Coca-Cola advertisement, emphasizing on how the first draft of any advertisement is decided by the face value of recognizable people, along with brand recognition. He gave the students the real world picture of Branding, and the underlying Market Research and Psychology behind branding a product.
He addressed a lot of questions from the students as well, especially on topics such as Market Expansion, Market Growth, and Market Intelligence. What made this part the most impactful was the fact that he shared and linked these to all his experiences pertaining to each of the wide sectors and companies he has been associated with. The students were left awestruck by his humility despite being an industry leader, motivator, and an inspiration.
He ended the session by stating “Be a researcher and never be bored,” and every Spartan could resonate with his words.
Compiled by Devyani Sormare, Somil Tyagi and Sunrita Sarkar
PGPM 2020 “Spartans”
Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon.