New Face Of India

Apart from Tendhulkar, Shilpa Shetty, Sonia Gandhi, Sania Mirza (hmmm ...) etc., we have a new face in newspapers - Arindam Choudhari.

Most of the times, I see him on TOI. Now why Planman ads feature most of the times in TOI only, somebody tell me.

Arindam Choudhari is a marketing genius. He is conspicuous in the print media, but is conspicuous by his absence in visual media. He has his hands everywhere. Planman Consulting, Planman Motion Pictures, Planman Technologies, The Great Indian Dream Foundation(GIDF) and Planman Media is what I know of.

His awards include Example to Youth, Personality of the Decade and The Management Guru.

I admire him for GIDF and they have Tendulkar endorsing it. I have not read his books yet, but the theme is progressive. But I still fail to understand how he could get into directing a movie called "Rok Sako Tho Rok Lo". It was a disaster. I regret watching that movie and it's not something that you would expect from a marketing genius who is expected to know the pulse of the market. Roping in Sunny Deol was again a blunder on top of his blunder. I am waiting for his "The Last Lear" and "I M 24".

In his recent write up in TOI, he mentions the significance of marketing and it's role in converting a movie into a block buster. He, however, has mentioned that the story line has to be good (Is it a new piece of information?). Having seen a disaster like his first movie, you better get the story right.

Then, I googled for more information about him and then I dug out this, this, this and this. Ridiculous !!! Must read. I do not want to comment any further about it. The issues have been beaten to death.

As for IIPM, I came to know about it in 2002 when one of my friends joined IIPM. I was also an MBA aspirant and wanted to join a B-School in 2003 and tried to take his input. His input was not too great. One would imagine, after 5 years, IIPM would have grown in it's capabilities to generate better managers and get into a situation where it can compete with IIMs and other premium B-Schools. Well, even after the massive publicity campaign and marketing, I still haven't seen people saying great things about it.