NMIMS, Mumbai wins RB Mavericks, 2015

After going through a rigorous screening process for more than 3 months, RB India and Dettol have announced the winners of RB Mavericks 2015 – the 9th edition of the Annual Case Study Competition of RB. Aditya Radhakrishnan and Baskar Subramanian from NMIMS, Mumbai outshined over 1,000 applicants with their unique idea to win the coveted title, along with Rs. 10 lakhs . The runner-up team from FMS, Delhi comprising Abhist Gaurav and Gursheel Singh also took home Rs. 5 lakhs.

Mavericks Challenge is the Annual Case Study Competition of RB (formerly Reckitt Benckiser), the world’s leading consumer Health and Hygiene Company. Started in 2006, this national level competition aims to identify game changers across B-Schools who have the ability to provide out of the box solutions to marketing problems. This year, as a part of Dettol Banega Swachh India initiative, the students were given a real life case challenge to drive behavior change around hand hygiene in a local community.

Congratulating the winners, Mr. Nitish Kapoor, Regional Director, RB South Asia said “I congratulate Aditya and Baskar for winning RB Mavericks 2015 and I am impressed with their creative approach to drive good hygiene & hand washing habits amongst children. They are indeed true mavericks and game changers. In the 9th year of the annual RB marketing case study competition, we have received a record response from B-Schools across the country. I congratulate all the finalists & other participants for their great work and thank our jury for their passionate involvement through the process.”

The grand finale this year was judged by eminent panel of jury members comprising Nitish Kapoor (Regional Director, RB South Asia), Prasoon Joshi (Chairman – Asia Pacific, CEO & Chief Creative Officer – India at McCann WorldGroup), Vikram Chandra (CEO – NDTV Group) and Dr. Indira Chakravarty (Padamshree Awardee and Chief Advisor - Public Health Engineering Department, Government of West Bengal)

The RB Mavericks Case Challenge, 2015 was launched in July, 2015 after the invitation for the competition was extended to students in 18 business schools across India. The application process was based online through a dedicated microsite www.mavericks.com. The participants had to form a team of two and also identify a local community of their choice with a minimum population of 2,500 residents. As the first step, they had conduct the research and gather insights from the identified community and based on that conceptualize a creative campaign to address the case challenge.

After receiving over 1000 entries, a dedicated team from RB initiated a rigorous screening process. The shortlisted entries were given an opportunity to make a presentation to the RB Panel. Based on the presentations, top 6 teams were selected for stage 3 where each team was funded with INR 1 lakh to bring their idea alive in the community they had identified. Later, the results of their execution were verified by an independent agency. At the finale - the Showdown, 6 teams from the Battlefield presented the results of their 'Germ of an Idea' and 'Campaign' demonstrating the behaviour change towards washing hands brought about by them in the selected community.