IIFT shines at the Nissan Student Brand Manager Program

Two students from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) have been selected for the National Finals of Nissan Student Brand Manager (NSBM) program to be held at Mumbai next month. The final round of selection for North Zone was held at the IIFT campus with the jury consisting of eminent personalities from the Advertising and the Automobile fields such as Mr. Prahlad Kakkar, Ad Guru, Genesis Films, Mr. Harish Bijoor, CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, Mr. Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor of Autocar India Magazine.

Expressed Mr KT Chacko, Director, IIFT, “IIFT congratulates the winners and wishes them all the success in their endeavors. IIFT is glad to provide this platform for the selection and enable its own and other students to come up with effective and novel marketing ideas."

The other finalists include students from the Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) and IBS, Dehradun.

Said Rathin Rawal, one of the finalists from IIFT, batch 2010 – 12 "I am thrilled. Having worked in the automobile sector, this event naturally generated interest in me. Presenting my ideas before stalwarts like Prahlad Kakkar and the possible opportunity of executing them in real life kept me motivated. The fact that it was held on my home turf - IIFT has been an added advantage."

This is the second year of the initiative by Nissan and this program invited applications from 150 colleges spanning across 15 cities in India. The company aims to target 1,200 entries for appointing 20 NSBM?s and the tenure of the program will be for a period of a six months starting from July to Dec’2011.

NSBM program is aimed at presenting a unique challenge to the students to create a niche for them and raise the standards of excellence for their future. The participants will get an opportunity to channelize their creative minds.

The 20-selected Student Brand Managers from across India are planned to play a key role in bringing brand Nissan closer to both - the student community and the public in general through innovative marketing initiatives. After undergoing training, the students will work closely with company officials on a variety of initiatives. Also each NSBM can get a “Nissan Micra” based on their requirements which will further help them to understand marketing activities of an automobile brand.