IIM-A to study Gujarat Tourism's Branding Campaign

Amitabh Bachchan said he was going to endorse places like Amritsar, Jaipur, Khajuraho

The Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of the premier management institutes of the country, will be studying the brand campaign of Gujarat Tourism and the impact it has had on tourist arrivals in the state.

Gujarat Tourism has been running the campaign "Khushboo Gujarat Ki" with popular Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan as the brand ambassador for the past three years. Faculty members Abraham Koshy and Arvind Sahay of IIM-A have been commissioned to write a case on the branding campaign and its impact on tourist arrivals in Gujarat.

The purpose is to look at the broader phenomenon of celebrity endorsements as a marketing tool and their effectiveness – where does it work and where does it not.

"Clearly, domestic tourist arrivals in Gujarat have ramped up considerably, with an almost 33 per cent rise in the numbers from within the state, a 50 per cent rise from other parts of India and from non-resident Indian (NRIs), and an almost 100 per cent increase from foreign tourists," said an IIM-A statement here today.

As a part of the case writing project, IIM-A on Thursday had organised a panel discussion on the topic of "A Destination Branding Strategy Using Celebrity Endorsement" with the brand ambassador,  Amitabh Bachchan, creative designer of the campaign, Piyush Pandey and principal secretary, Gujarat Tourism, Vipul Mittra. The panel discussion looked at issues relating to the genesis of the idea, the reasons for using a celebrity for the first time in a campaign like this, the creative approach behind the campaign and its implementation.

Talking about brand endorsements, Bachchan narrated an incidence of a school girl once asking him about his endorsement of Pepsi.

"The girl asked me that since her teacher says that cola drinks were not healthy why was I endorsing them? After that, I stopped endorsing Pepsi," he said.

Bachchan added that now he does a thorough study of a brand's company and its background before endorsing it.

Meanwhile, talking about tourism endorsements, Bachchan said that he was in future going to endorse other places like Amritsar, Jaipur, Tirupati and Khajuraho.

The campagn has been successful in such a way that the state has seen a 13.6 per cent growth in the number of tourists visiting Gujarat last year, which was around 25 million.