Press Tease 2012 (Ver 2.0) at IMT Ghaziabad grows into the real thing! Future Managers get to ‘Know’ the Media, by ‘Being’ the Media

13th of August, 2012 was a big day for 60 teams from each of the seven sections of the First Year. The two-member teams had signed up in a bid to be crowned the kings and queens of media knowledge at IMT Ghaziabad. The next 48 hours would see some hard-core media battles between Newspaper eaters and News-channel devourers. PRESS TEASE 2012, organised by the CCMRC, or Corporate Communication and Media Relations Committee, was all set to begin.

The CCMRC of IMT Ghaziabad came up with a masterstroke to sift out the serious contenders from the pretenders. The first round was divided into two activities. In the first activity, teams were handed the 10th August 2012 edition of ‘Mint’ newspaper. 30 words, phrases and sentences, which were mentioned in the ‘Mint’ on that day, were then flashed on the screen. The teams were given 10 minutes to identify these 30 elements in that newspaper. The second activity was based on a 5-minute ‘mashed-up’ video, which comprised visuals of 18 different national and international news-making stories. The teams were required to answer a question pertaining to each of these 18 stories. A total of 16 teams made the cut based on these two activities. With the non-serious contendors out of the way, the competition was all set to heat up.

The second round again had two sub-sections. In the first sub-section, the were each handed a questionnaire with 10 questions each. Each question had a set of clues that indicated a certain date. This was a round that required so much grey matter that toppers of this round scored just 4 out of 10. The second sub-section, called ‘Bluffmaster’, was a more ‘doable’ affair… or so it seemed. Again, a set of 10 questions was given out to the 16 teams, but this time the questions had multiple choice answers. The winners were decided by polling for the ‘minority’ answers – or most uncommon answers to the 10 questions. Understandably, this led to a lot of confusion, which ranked high on the fun quotient of PRESS TEASE 2012.

The final result of Round 2 was declared thereafter. From the original 60 teams of First Year students of IMT Ghaziabad, nine teams had made it to the Finals. After this absolutely exhausting business of day 1, those left standing were looking forward to their well-earned rest and recuperation. But the CCMRC of IMT Ghaziabad dropped a bombshell! All the 9 teams in the finals were disbanded! Well before you jump to conclusions, the 18 finalists were randomly shuffled by draw of lots, and reconstituted into 6 teams of three members each. These 6 teams were then given their topics. The third and final round of Press Tease was going to be a mock Press Conference; with a ‘Mock Press’ comprising of 10-15 students and faculty grilling each of the 6 teams who had to hold their ground on the given topic.

"Video Mash-ups, dates of historical importance, hints in the ‘Mint’ (newspaper), the notorious-cum-fiery Press, and the raining Moolah – it was all definitely a notch above the first version,” remarked an excited Nidhish Gupta, Co-ordinator, Senior CCMRC, IMT Ghaziabad. “It feels great to see the freshly recruited junior CCMRC team make Press-Tease v 2.0 one of the most talked-about events on campus, both in terms of the pre-event promos and the post-event appreciation !!!"

With only the night to prepare, all thoughts of sleeping off the mentally exhausting proceedings of Day 1 were postponed to a later night. The finalists huddled in teams and burnt an amazing amount of midnight oil to be fully prepared on their respective topics.

With topics as contentious as West Bengal Government’s Two-Years Report Card, Anna Hazare Forming a Political Party, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Rehabilitation Department, Kasab Being Deported to Pakistan for Further Proceedings, etc., everybody was cramming facts and figures to be ready for a fight to the finish. Each team had 5 minutes to make an opening statement, after which the mock ‘Press’ of faculty members and students of IMT Ghaziabad unleashed a scathing attack with a series of intimidating questions. The mock Press even resorted to ‘spoofs’ and ‘hams’ depicting real life media-personalities to make the situation downright hilarious – but it was still intense for the competitors.

Ultimately, Team-3 of Himanshu Gulati, Utthara Korada and Varun Sudhindra were able to impress one and all with their calm and unruffled conduct of a mock Press Conference. Tackling the subject of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Rehabilitation, they won the First Prize.

"The intellectual activities coupled with the fun events were original yet challenging,” remarked Utthara Korada of the winning team. “The final round was a near perfect simulation of a real press conference. It was great to be a part of such a well-organised and mentally stimulating event."

Surprisingly, the team standing by the decision of ‘Commerce Team would be given 40% weightage in CAT exam’ was declared the first runners-up, due to their immense background knowledge and understanding of the subject. “Press Tease would qualify as one of my best experiences in IMT in the short span of time I have been here”, confessed Alok Chand of this team. “It was a lot of fun and even if we hadn’t won anything, I would have said the same!”

The Team standing up for the West Bengal Government on its completion of two years in power did a good job, enough to win them the 2nd runners-up spot.

PRESS TEASE 2012 was clearly an exercise that would have made a top-notch media institute proud. Interestingly, it reflects how deeply media management is ingrained in the genes of IMT Ghaziabad. No wonder that some of the top names in the world of media and advertising come out of IMT Ghaziabad, and its managers recognised for being extremely media-savvy.