The year 2017 was unique for the Manipal-based TA Pai Management Institute (TAPMI). It celebrated the silver jubilee edition of its flagship market research fair, BrandScan, in November.
What is it?
BrandScan is a market research fair held to obtain unbiased and natural responses from customers. In this event, TAPMI students collect data from those who visit the fair, and analyse and interpret the same. Based on this, they provide insights to companies. This is done by using games that are disguised to help elicit natural consumer responses towards the products or services being analysed.
Started in 1993, the event has been associated with more than 170 clients over the last two-and-a-half decades. It has helped develop more than 300 projects across various sectors since then. Madhu Veeraraghavan, Director of TAPMI, plans to increase the reach of this flagship event in the coming years.
In a chat with BLoC at Manipal recently, he said BrandScan serves as a great platform for both learning and connecting directly with the industry. Stating that it has achieved brilliant things over the last 25 years, he said he would like to see some case studies, which were part of BrandScan, get published. This will be done with the permission of the companies that participated in the event.
At present, the market research fair is limited to places such as Manipal and Kundapur in Udupi district, and Bengaluru. “I want to take BrandScan to different cities to connect with the industry,” he said.
The corporate entities in cities such as Mumbai and other places could see the relevance of the event, only if it were organised there. When they see the TAPMI students delivering, it will obviously translate into more placements and more corporate engagements, Madhu added.
“BrandScan has to go to different cities to showcase what we do, how we understand the minds of consumers, what quality research reports we do and what recommendations we give. Once we do that, we will be known throughout. That is our vision for BrandScan. It is not to be Manipal, Kundapur, and Bengaluru. It has to be pan-India,” he said.
This year, the market research fair was conducted in Manipal on November 12 and in Bengaluru’s Yeshwanthpur on November 18 and 19.