MOOD INDIGO REPORT

Cultural fest of IIT-B.

By Shreyas Tater.
Roll Number : 108114088

Brief Information:
Mood Indigo, also known as MoodI or MI, is the annual cultural festival of the Indian Institute of
Technology,Bombay. It is an event usually held towards the end of December every year. The 2013
edition of Mood Indigo witnessed a footfall of more than 1,04,000 students from more than 1500
colleges from across the country. Started in 1971, Mood Indigo, now in its 44th edition, has become
the largest festival of its kind in Asia.

Events:
Pro-shows:
Pronites or Pro-shows feature well known national and international artists. Mood Indigo Pronites
have staged international bands like the Neal Morse band featuring Mike Portnoy in 2013,Simple
Plan in 2012, Karnivool in 2011, Katatonia in 2010, Porcupine Tree in 2009 and Ensiferumin 2008.
Mood Indigo also played host to its first ever EDM concert with DJ Lange performing here in 2013.
Pronites has also hosted performers like music legend Asha Bhosle , Jagjit Singh, ShankarEhsaan
Loy, Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Amit Trivedi, Kailash Kher, Salim-Sulaiman, Mohit Chauhan, Raghu
Dixit, KK, Lucky Ali, Amit Kumar, Kavita Seth, Pankaj Udhas, Raghav Sachar and Javed Ali. Classical
artists like Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi and sitar maestro Ustad Amjad
Ali Khan have performed here as well.

Social Cause:
Platelet Donation (Mood Indigo 2013)
Platelet do it! - was one of the most successful nation-wide awareness campaigns under which a
total of 30,000 students volunteered to register as platelet donors from over 1900 colleges across
the nation

Thalassemia (Mood Indigo 2012)

To spread awareness about thalassemia, a social cause campaign was launched in MI 2012.
Thalassemia testing camps were set up in various locations and colleges, and about 1400 people
were tested.

Sparsh (Mood Indigo 2011)

Tying up with the Make A Difference NGO, the Mood Indigo core committee launched Sparsh for
betterment of underprivileged children through campaigns and awareness drives. The organizers
went to slums and interacted with slum children, understanding and trying to solve their problems.

Sponsors:
Mood Indigo has attracted sponsorships from various corporation due to huge participation of
students from all over India. Many prominent names have been associated with many events in
Mood Indigo including Tata Photon, Oreo, LinkedIn, Tata Docomo, Colgate, Parle, State Bank of
India, Canara Bank, Pepsi, WWE, MTV,PVR, Fame, Levi's, Reliance, Nokia, BlackBerry, Cisco,
Pantaloons, Femina, Maybelline, Gatsby, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza, Subway (restaurant),Limca
Book of Records, Go-Jiyo and Coca Cola. Cadbury owned biscuit brand, Oreo, set a new Guinness
World Record at Mood Indigo 2013 where all of 1,796 people simultaneously consumed Oreo
biscuits in the brand's signature 'Twist, Lick, Dunk' style, breaking the previous record set by 1,503
people in Argentina.
The media sector has seen several names like Hindustan Times, Times of India, Bombay
Times, MTV, UTV, Channel V, Radio Mirchi, DNA, Red FM, 9x. Also Mood Indigo has had associations
with Shiamak Davar Dance Academy, Dance India Dance, NCPA, Whistling Woods, USA Sumo
Association, the Israeli Embassy, Embassy of Canada, Poland, Korea, Ireland and The Swedish
Institute . With a heavy footfall of over 1,04,000 in 4-days, association with Mood Indigo is a matter
of prestige and is reflected in the range of sponsorships it attracts.

Publicity:
Mood Indigo is one of the most widely publicised and covered college festival in India, receiving
extensive coverage by all sectors of media. In print media leading newspapers like The Times of
India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, DNA, The Economic Times and also several local
dailies cover Mood Indigo throughout the year. In electronic media, Mood Indigo is covered by Red
Fm, Radio Mirchi and prominent TV networks like 9X Media. Over the years festival has been
covered in several youth centric shows like MTV Wassup!, UTV Campus Attack. Some of the
popular events covered on television were Sumo Wrestling On ESPN and Sahara, Livewire by ZEE
Music and Shahid Kapoor by NDTV. Through DSN media Mood Indigo's advertisements were
shown throughout the country. In 2010, footage of Amit Trivedis Mood Indigo 2010 concert was
used in the DVD edition of Udaan.
Apart from this, they also started a monthly newsletter, The Monthly Prophet to keep people
updated about the activities coming up in MI. The link is provided below:
http://issuu.com/iitbombay.moodi/docs/newsletter_1_
Several websites which contain info for college students, keep posting updates about MI. Some of
the websites which have posted several articles on MI are:
www.markmyfest.com
www.yofest.com
www.youthkiawaaz.com
www.totheculture.com

COMPARISON:
Simple Stats:
NUMBER OF________
Likes on FB
Followers on Twitter
Tweets on Twitter
Subscribers on Youtube
Followers on Quora

MOOD INDIGO
274287
6567
2330
2812
11.9k

FESTEMBER
20811
342
290
114
2.1k

Why MoodI is better than Festember?

1.Stats:
MI clearly beats Festember in terms of its social media/online publicity. It has over 10 times the
number of likes on FB, 20 times the number of followers, around 10 times the number of tweets , 20
times the number of subscribers and 6 times the number of followers. One of the main reasons is
the failure of Festember to relate with its past editions. There are 2 accounts of Festember on
Twitter and Facebook. This causes confusion among people as to which account relates to the
current edition. This leads to losing out on a lot of followers and likes. Whereas Mood Indigo has
maintained a single account for its editions, this doesnt cause much inconvenience to the public
since they keep getting updates without having to subscribe to the new edition.

2.World Fest:
Worldfest is an initiative to bring together folk dance troupes from the world. International groups
visiting Worldfest conduct workshops to facilitate cultural exchange, participate in sightseeing tours,
parties and journeys to various points in the host city of Mumbai.
Mood Indigo Worldfest 2011 brought together groups from Spain, Turkey, Poland and Indonesia to
perform on a single platform to showcase their countrys rich cultural heritage. In 2012, Mood Indigo
Worldfest had countries of Italy, Japan, Romania, Serbia and Sri Lanka exhibiting their culture and
food.
Whereas, Festember cannot afford these many artistes simultaneously due to the budget
constraints. With a budget upper limit of Rs. 38 lacs , calling these many foreign artistes would make
a hole into our pockets. The budget of MI cannot be confirmed to a particular range. But it will
definitely be a lot more than that of Festember which can be speculated from the big MNCs which
sponsor MI.

3. Location:
> IIT-B is located in the back yard of the Bollywood industry and also Mumbai is the financial capital
of India.
> Various celebrities have come to Mood Indigo for promoting their upcoming projects. In
2012, Anushka Sharma and Imran Khan awarded the winners of Mr. & Ms. MI competition of

the festival and promoted their the then upcoming movie Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola. On the
Bollywood nite of the festival Chitrangada Singh and Arjun Rampal came to promote Inkaar.
> With most of the big companies based in Mumbai, they literally have a fish pond and can net any
big fish with much ease than Festember can.
> Moreover, since it is connected with all the major cities and towns, students can easily come and
participate. This is Festembers disability; we dont have good connectivity (even though the station
is prominent junction) with major cities.
>At last, most of the old IITs are built amidst forests, retaining their natural beauty. IIT-B has a lake
(better than our pseudo-lake), 3 big halls, an OAT and a hill within its compound walls.

4. Timing of the fest:

> MI is organised in December, when the climate is just perfect, neither too hot, nor too cold, and
also most of the college students will be having their winter vacations going on. On the other hand,
Festember is organised in September, when most of the colleges are still working. This reduces the
number of people visiting the campus significantly.

4. Reaching to people through its social activities:

>MI focuses on one particular problem in society and concentrates all its resources on it. Also the
causes they take up are not very much known to the public. Hence when they start spreading
awareness about it, a lot of attention is generated. Although most of the attention is out of simple
curiosity, it does get their names in the newspapers without much deliberation with the news
agencies. Whereas Festember focuses on a variety of programmes with an aim to impact all the age
groups, but it turns out that all their activities went mostly in vain. Examples:

The Gold DustBin event: It concentrates on the students of NITT. But then Festember does
have a guaranteed audience from these students (not from first years, since when this event
happens, no freshers are present).
Channelled Clarity towards Charity (CCC): It aims at getting funds by organising events for
school students, majority of whom would not be able to make it due to their schooling.
Metrole: Aimed at the common man of working classes, it created awareness on financial
issues, like rupee depreciation, gold trade etc. This is something that would have made an
impact due to its timing.

All these events, although started off with a new idea to impact the masses, failed to achieve a
better impact due to the poor publicity of the events.

5. MI, being a trendsetter:

>MI has been constantly scouting unchartered territories. It has a song on itself, which can be heard
on their website, www.moodi.org . Their website design is much better than that of College Fest
(Boston University, supposedly the largest college fest). And they always try to put out their history
in front of the public, to garner interest. Although Festember does publicize its history of artistes,

the same was not shown on the website. This leads to losing out on some individuals who arent
very keen on attending Festember.

Where Festember beats MoodI:

>Festember is totally free. Whereas, MI has tickets for its International Nite.
The only valid reason I could support.

Steps to be taken to improve Festember:

Publicity and Media Relations: We should try to impact the masses with a publicity spree a
few days before Festember. Publicity should be concentrated in Metros, near the corporate
offices, to increase the awareness among the corporates which will help in bringing
sponsors.
Timing: Festember stands for A fest to remember, not a fest in September, so clearly we
are not bound to keep the fest at a time when most of the colleges are working.
FSR: Its activities should get more coverage by the media. This can be done by spreading
awareness on serious but not so common issues, in the same way which MI did.
Celebrities: Festember can bring in actors for publicising their upcoming movies. This
generates a lot of public interest and is mutually beneficial to both, Festember and the
movie producers.
Branding: Festember will get more sponsors if we develop sponsor-centric events. We have
to give more recognition to the brands. MI set a new bench mark by making a Guinness
World record for OREO. This is unconventional and this is what we will have to do.

Conclusion:
With these steps, I feel Festember can definitely better itself. It has been growing in all aspects
exponentially and soon can become the top fest in the Asia. Although there are many factors like
location and climate which we dont have a grip on, we can definitely try to overcome these
difficulties by coming out with better ides as mentioned above.