The annual IBA Conference this year called “AIMS” was held on April 3, 2011 at IBA Main Campus Auditorium. Industrial leaders and Research Specialists were invited to conduct an interactive session with participants from major business schools including IBA, CBM, Szabist, Iqra, Bahria, MAJU and KU. Workshop activities were planned in the genres of branding, media buying and sales to provide simulated learning.

The event was kicked off by Zeeshan Channa, Manager Marketing Club followed by the key note presentation. This was an enlightening session on Omore ice cream’s launch in Karachi by Fuad Chundrigar, the Vice President Marketing at Engro Foods. After this was a highly interactive panel discussion comprising Ali Raza Merchant, a Director at Synergy and Ashfaq Akbar Head of Priority Banking at UBL Saeed Urrahman, formerly of Gilette. The discussion was moderated by Akhtar Mahmood, Senior IBA faculty member and a Branding Consultant. The debate during this session among other brand matters, led to an exchange of unusual insights into the logic behind HBL’s advertising campaign during the world cup featuring Mr Bean.
 

Maximum utility of digital media, its implications and alternative uses were presented by Umair Saeed, Strategy Director at Blitz. Qashif Effendi, renowned brand strategist and consultant was flown in especially from Dubai to enlighten the partcipants on brand development. Neil Christy, CEO Headlion Group, talked about creativity in advertising. Hassan Rizwan gave tips on the art of Customer Centric Selling which are pre-requisites of effective selling. Munawar Jamal of Toyota Indus Motors, during his presentation “Selling Dynamites” strongly advocated IBA’s standard of education and its graduates’ mindset that allows them to lead and conquer all challenges that the industry throws their way. This conference was essentially organized by IBA to nurture the immense potential students possess across the board which need platforms like AIMS to channelize their energies in the right direction.

The last speaker of the evening was Dr Ishrat Husain, Dean and Director of IBA with remarks extolling the achievements of clubs and societies and the tremendous contribution clubs like the IBA Marketing club are making to enhance the extracurricular knowledge of IBA students. The event was closed by Jami Moiz, Patron. IBA Marketing Club thanking the participants and the organizers for a wonderful illuminating day furthering the understanding of marketing and providing an opportunity for all to see marketing in action.