DCU Business School Digital Marketing Trip to India

DCU Business School Digital Marketing Trip to India

On January 17th 2015, students from the MSc in Digital Marketing programme at DCU Business School travelled to Bangalore, India with faculty members and researchers from IC4 (Irish Centre for Cloud Computing).

Throughout the week long trip, they were hosted by the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore (IIMB). The purpose of the trip was two-fold, with IC4 conducting research in collaboration with IIMB while the students explored digital marketing from an international perspective.

The journey commenced with a day of rest and relaxation at the 5 star Leela Palace, where the group recovered from jet lag and prepared for the busy days ahead. An enormous brunch combined with the hotel’s opulent surroundings gave the weary travellers a great lift. The days that followed consisted of a variety of informative and though-provoking industry trips, combined with cultural excursions.

The first industry trip was a visit to Edelman in Bangalore, where the charismatic head of South Indian operations and her team gave valuable insights into digital communications in India. The group discussed the unique challenges the organisation faces in a market with relatively low internet penetration. Edelman’s slick new offices in Bangalore are reflective of the fact that Edelman is a recent entrant into the Indian market. It has nevertheless grown rapidly to establish dominance in its area and is one of the fastest growing agencies in the city of Bangalore.

The DCU Business School team also spent time at IBM in the other-worldly Manyata Tech Park. Four expert speakers gave detailed presentations about big data and state-of-art technology that is applicable to not just digital marketing, but a variety of uses including national security. Amongst these talks was a fascinating discussion on data anomaly detection and how such detections can be used to make inferences about real-life behaviour. This was followed up by a visit to a solar-powered data centre, where a guide showcased a variety of big data storage innovations by IBM. The tour concluded with a relaxing break on the roof-top, where the group enjoyed the sunshine alongside rows of solar-panels.

A jam-packed cultural day broke up the industry activities and was considered a highlight of the trip by many. The group visited temples, went horse-back riding, saw magnificent palaces and had numerous close encounters with monkeys. There was lots to learn about the region’s culture and history, but the lasting memories were in no small part aided by the camaraderie that the group developed over the course of the one-week trip.

An all-day industry event brought the trip to a close and was curated by the dynamic Suresh Babu of the Web Marketing Academy. Mr. Babu assembled a conference on digital marketing and invited some members to speak on a panel along with local industry specialists. Dr Theo Lynn, Ieva Masevic, Sean Donnelly and Sean MacMillan represented the Dublin City University faculty and students on the panel. The audience had many questions and discussions covering a range of topics such as email marketing, social marketing tools, apps, Google Adwords and the merits of Google Plus. There were some heated debates and disagreements throughout the day, which kept the event dynamic and engaging. Once the event was over, the group visited two digital marketing agencies, including Mr. Babu’s own workplace. He kindly surprised the group with personalised engraved plaques which served as a great memento for the trip.

It is almost impossible to condense the experiences of the students and faculty members on this trip to a single blog post. If you would like to know more, please visit digitrip2015.wordpress.com, where postgraduate students Mimi Bunting and Carlos Quinn will be regularly posting updates about their personal experiences on this exciting trip.