Chota Bheem: A Mascot For A Local Ladoo Seller? Adv Expert Ms. Ashwini Deshpande approves.

Irrespective of the nature of the semester, i.e. online or offline, guest lectures have always been a prerequisite of every semester at SCMC Pune. 

On 16th of July 2020, Ms. Ashwini Deshpande joined the batch of 2021 for an online guest session. She has extensive experience in the advertising and marketing industry and has worked for successful organisations like Kesari Tours. Her association with Symbiosis has been a long one as a guest faculty. To boot, she is a celebrated theatre artist and her performances can be witnessed not only in critically acclaimed plays but also in a couple of SCMC degree films!  

The session started with introductions and later proceeded to discuss the basics of Advertising. Students were made to dissect iconic advertisements to understand the process of ideation, strategy and execution. Some of the advertisements that were dissected included the famous Cannes Lions winner, Happy Dent Palace released in 2007 which was a brainchild of McCann Erickson. The celebrated Indian Railways Campaign by Ogilvy Delhi was also a part of this exercise. The first half of the session was extremely perceptive and helpful. 

Later, the class analyzed the effects of the novel coronavirus on the advertising industry. A broad insight on how brand marketing would undergo a drastic change in the post Covid-19 world was given by the lecturer. She also advised the students to be more empathetic as future marketers. 

Furthermore, another interesting exercise was assigned wherein the students were made to brainstorm ideas on how a local 'ladoo' seller can advertise his product and reach his audience in a world hit by a pandemic. The ideas that the students came up with were quite promising and refreshing. The class was amused when one of the students suggested using 'Chota Bheem' as the mascot considering he is known to get his immunity from 'ladoos.’ Advertising the local ladoos as a method to increase immunity in the middle of a global pandemic using Chota Bheem seemed crazy but witty. Ms. Ashwini lauded this idea and suggested some additional strategies as well. 

The lecture conducted by Ms. Ashwini Deshpande was definitely received with admiration by the students. Not to mention, the discussion that ensued was relevant and made perfect sense in the current scenario. 

By, 

Anushka Ghadigaonkar