We’ve been talk long at IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association India) about setting up a consumer facing expo with the twin aim of
1. giving our members a platform for interacting with consumers live, which is a critical component of marketing, severely lacking in India;
2. Increasing consumer awareness of the benefits of the Internet, thus helping accelerate the growth of the Internet in India.
India is possible the only major Internet nation without a live platform for product launches. In the US, it is possible to be part of a live Internet-event practically every single day, with cities like San Francisco seeing an event a week. In the US infact it is rare to see startups and new product launches building awareness through billboards and advertising, as they prefer live events which generate far more buzz.
Thanks to the efforts of IAMAI president Subho Ray, this is now a reality. 12 – 15 Dec sees Digital India 2007 at Pragati Maidan Delhi. This is a big tent event expecting a qualified 100,000 crowd of students in the day (via school tours) and business card visitors/students in the evening.
It is expected that all Internet movers and shakers will be present and many will have large displays. For startups 10×10 booths are available at a nominal Rs. 100,000. Those interested please contact Mehul Gupta: Mehul @ IAMAI dot In.
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@RYK : Look forward to seeing it. Not denying that you guys are doing a great job of developing the ecosystem. Keep that bit up 🙂
@Ravi would like to do that at future events. Give the ecosystem some time to evolve.
@Vamsi, guerrilla tactics are great. I recommend all startups to adopt them. Booth helps when you can set-up good demo stations.
Deepak,
This is excellent stuff. I would like to add one more thing which worked in the past. Dont take a booth! Instead go to the conference wearing your company’s T-shirts, have others wear your T-shirts (as Deepak suggested) and hand out b/w (cheap) flyers to people at the entrance. This serves your purpose much better than a 10×10 booth. The only drawback is not being able to capture business cards etc. But, in these giant conferences no one gives a damn for your 10×10 booth anyway – if you want serious leads or generate serious enthusiasm you should embellish your booth – perhaps have some models :-).
Vamsi.
Deepak,
This is real knowledge sharing !! Hats off
RYK, Point taken, but I would still disagree on the SN bit This is not a fun place to be so why would the people that the SN sites want to come here? Distractive focus is good (in a college event) because you have a few minutes of YOUR audience. (You can get more by sponsoring the stage acts as well) It’s more important to have a small piece of the one puzzle you’re trying to solve, rather than many small pieces of different puzzles, because in the end you have to throw out all those you don’t want, and even the time spent hunting for those pieces is not worth it (and it’s the least expensive of all the activities you’ve just spent on)
Media helps of course. But the small guy NEVER stands out. It’s only the guys who pay through their nose for PR (note: not usually the bootstrapped entrepreneur) that get to hog the media pages.