City people throng the MAXI fair on the XLRI campus. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Jan. 22: The 27th marketing fair ? MAXI ? at the XLRI School of Management today saw creative games that the students had come up with to help corporates understand consumer behaviour.

The focus of the fair, organised by the marketing association of institution, was to test and analyse consumer behaviour using what is called the Projective Research Technique, ?where games are used as surrogates for eliciting unbiased responses from customers?.

As many as five counters ? on the themes Bunti and Babli, Kohinoor ki Khoj, Mahabharata, Aladdin and Chacha Chaudhary (a famous cartoon character) ? manned by the students, collected inputs for research problem posed by five companies across various sectors.

According to members of the marketing association, the fair, a brainchild of marketing professor Sharad Sarin, has gained popularity over the years. And today, it is widely acknowledged as an ?accredited market research tool?.

Leading financial intermediaries such as Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Alliance had participated in the fair to gain new marketing perspectives.

Secretary of XLRI?s marketing association, Shailendra Barshikar, claimed that several firms have been able to take vital decisions on the basis of inputs at the marketing fair.