April 03, 2006

Big fonts zindabad

Ad for an institute called IIPM (never heard of it, right? Don't worry) in today's Hindustan Times. Something about Campus Placements, and how "The biggest B-School on earth just got bigger!!"

(Yes, but could the biggest B-School on earth be a little stingier with exclamation marks?)

If you let your eyes wander about half the way down the ad, you will find that IIPM is inviting applications for admissions to its MBA and BBA courses.

Well, that's until you actually read the sentence that's there, and it reads thus:
    Applications are invited for Spring-Summer admissions 2006-08/9 to IIPM's unique superior to MBA and BBA courses in Planning and Entrepreneurship.
So you see, what IIPM really offers is not a MBA, not a BBA, but things called "unique superior to MBA and BBA courses." (The someday-to-be-world-famous "USTMABC").

So why would you, with your eye wandering over this ad and reading this sentence, take away the impression that IIPM offers MBA and BBA courses?

Maybe because as printed, that sentence actually looks like this:
    Applications are invited for Spring-Summer admissions 2006-08/9 to IIPM's unique

    superior to MBA and BBA courses
    in Planning and Entrepreneurship.

Question: How likely is it that a random reader, seeing this, will have the words "MBA" and "BBA" stick in his mind?

I'm with you. Not likely at all.

***

Postscript: See the ad for yourself, here. Don't miss the line right at the bottom, printed almost but not quite as large as the words "MBA" and "BBA": "IIPM conducts its own programmes in Planning & Entrepreneurship (a non-professional, non-technical course)...".

Postscript #2: Link above to the ad in HT no longer works, so I have replaced it with Arzan's copy of the ad. (Thank you Arzan!)

19 comments:

anantha said...

ummm...
Will there be 100% placement? YOU GUESS!!

Just to clarify, do they mean "Guess" like the American usage? Or are they using "Guess" as a replacement for "You tell me"?? I am at a loss for words. For everybody (incl. me) who said, we have made a difference, sorry. As a media form, we are a drop in the ocean and we have ages to go before we can really get some change.

Anonymous said...

Can somebody please tell the morons from the shittiest B-grade-B-school on Earth that they need to take "English 101: An introduction to the English language". What sort of brain-dead people go to a college(?) whose ad looks like a Viagra spam mail from Nigeria?

Mridula said...

Some people will never learn!!

Anonymous said...

Right on dodo...who on earth with a slightly sane frame of mind would like to study at such place!!!!!fails me.

Shibu said...

Well, i guess what we see in the ad is a breakthrough marketing( advertising) tactics as proposed in the "pony-tail" model of effective eye-washing!!!!!!!!!!

AG said...

Still.. They're JUST the gawds when it comes to brain washing!!

An Ideal Boy said...

You see the ad and you feel disgusted.

ecophilo said...

Amity has another ad too that has started running with the line "Completed your XII boards?" And then some superlative text too...these instis ought to be banned

Anonymous said...

This is an absolutely amazing post, Dilip. 9 hats off!

You have blurred a very interesting line with this analysis, between the text and presentation, juxtaposition, text and image.

And this extends to "brands" across products.

gawker said...

Its funny because if they feel their courses are superior to MBA and BBA, shouldn't they be magnifying the word "superior" instead of MBA and BBA?

Anonymous said...

'added exposure to Internationally acllaimed professors from....'

Apart from the total uselessness of making 'international' a proper noun, if you look at the at the list of the universities: it goes Harvard, Columbia, LSE, Stanford, YALE.

So LSE = London School of Economy; but pray tell me what acronym YALE stands for ? :-)

I guess people who still shell out their hard earned money after reading such ads such deserve what they get !

Dilip D'Souza said...

I'm glad to see so many of you are so concerned with the welfare of IIPM. On their behalf, may I thank you. I notice that a fair number of you have imbibed their multiple-exclamation-marks teaching well.

anti, your guess is as good as mine.

dodo, please don't insult us office-holders of the Association of Dispatchers of Viagra Spam Mail from Nigeria. We have all done unique superior to MBA and BBA courses.

gawker, on the button! But you see, even if the course is superior, we all know that people want MBAs and BBAs.

BongoP, what does YALE stand for, you mean you don't know? It's "Yet Another coLlection of lEtters". Don't tell me you confused it with a minor-league institution in New Haven?

greatbong said...

The biggest BSchool just got bigger.

YALE= Yet Another Lame Excuse

Awesome post, Dilip.

Mridula said...

Ah, so here comes a Rohit to deliver to the blog world without a single post to his credit! Typical IIPM shtyle!!!

K said...

Rohit - we're sooooo scee-ared!

Anonymous said...

Dear Rohit,

I have the unfortunate opportunity to have seen most of the students of IIPM for campus interviews. I can only say that "I feel sorry for them". I simply ask you one thing. Why the hell an institute which is running a course in "Entrepreneurship and planning" is talking about placements? You guys should start your own business and employ people instead of looking for employment. Are you there Rohit. If someone were to "dare to think beyond IIMs" then there are many b schools in US and UK. Some institutes are just like a napkin in a dustbin. Should stop licking it.

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