Introducing BDPR – The Method Behind the Madness

People in their crew t-shirts walk up, and down the all too familiar roads, names are being called, and materials are being transported — so much chaos in the air to put on the best show. And of course, MTTN, the very eye of Manipal, covers all of this too.

With our Memorandum of Understanding in place, we take things into our own hands, looking at this chaos and capturing it with our camer – wait a second.

Camera? Event. EVENT.

Shailesh checks his phone; a message glows saying the event has been preponed by an hour. It starts in 15 minutes.

“The MoU says we’re covering it,” he says. “We can’t back down.”

Don’t worry, Shailesh has been in this situation one too many times. He teams up with Neha, his partner in crime, or this case, a partner in getting a photographer in 15 minutes, and ticking.

Both of them hop onto their phones, messages on messages being sent and calls being made, they know their responsibilities and something so puny shall not distress them.

Five minutes later, they’re seen smiling again, gleaming as they look at each other. The photographer has been contacted, they have their name tag, their camera, and is a couple of minutes away from the venue.

MTTN is Manipal’s largest student-run media organisation.

We have multiple departments – from haywire writers to photographers who risk their limbs for the perfect shot. And there’s one department that makes sense of this madness – the Business Development and Public Relations Department.

BDPR is what a background score is to a good movie—unnoticeable yet effective, and this is the department that ensures that the organization runs smoothly. Comprising of meticulous minds with a knack for understanding businesses and publicity, this department is full of the most enterprising people in the organization.

The 5:30 bell finally rung, signaling that the dreaded lecture had finally ended. Karishma looked up hopefully at the teacher – maybe she’d let her leave on time. After all, she had work to finish after college ended.

Summerfest is MTTN’s annual creative competition, and the winners were to be announced in a couple of days, the prizes had to be delivered to them. This year, discount coupons from a popular restaurant in Manipal were to be won. She trudged along the upward slope from AB5 to the main gate, hoping to catch an auto to the restaurant and finally collect the coupons before Manipal’s signature moody rains began.

Being a part of BDPR meant making sure the organization ran smoothly, even if it meant going out of the way, getting drenched in the rain or walking to that restaurant due to the unavailability of autos. And Karishma would execute just that.

As you read this article, the entire crew is getting ready to welcome the freshers to our beautiful family. Everyone is publicizing one thing and one thing only –

MTTN Recruitment – 5:45 PM at School of Communication.
And of course, we can’t do this task without the help of our handy dandy Public Relations team.

Two weeks prior to recruitment and Melissa is standing outside her director’s office, shuffling on her feet and picking at her nails. She needs to get the permissions for all the lecture halls, but she knows how difficult it is to do so.

She waits and waits, seconds and minutes ticking by. She tucks her hair behind her ears and approaches. With a humble and steady voice, she explains why MTTN requires the classrooms and how no damage shall be caused. She’s rejected almost immediately. But Melissa won’t take a no.

She comes back a day later, with signatures from the board, stating that no damage shall be done to any of the college equipment and that MTTN will bear responsibility for any mishaps in equipment. And she succeeds, as you probably can already tell.

Visesh is a boy, known among his DOC mates as a vocal and extrovert individual.
And so he is, as he continually puts his college into the spotlight by highlighting their every event. He creates MoU’s between MTTN and DOC for college fests, helps in getting photographers to cover events in his college and help hype up his college. He works as a mediator, a voice for his college and service from MTTN.

You’ll often see him establishing contacts within his college, delegating responsibilities and making MTTN more efficient through every event we cover.

From holding meetings that engage the crew members from their respective colleges to being the face of the college for MTTN, Visesh and Melissa work hand in hand, helping each other reduce the distance between colleges in hopes to make one strong bond, the MTTN bond.

Eshan was caught up in too much work again.

MTTN’s Noir Select cards were the organization’s most significant project this year, and it had to be a success. The card was a solution to save students from their end-of-the-month budget woes. MTTN had associated with multiple businesses around town to get owners of the card the best deal for their products and services.

From going around pitching to different businesses in Manipal and drafting MoU’s to getting the cards printed out with the card owner’s name and number; the whole project had been hectic but was going smoothly.

Now, it was the last leg of the project – delivering it to the customers.
Holding a stack of neatly pressed white envelopes that had beautiful cursive handwriting on them, Eshan stood at the Student Plaza, waiting for the new owners to come and collect their cards.

Have you seen our Socials? Well if you haven’t, do that right now.

And if you have, well, say hi to the people behind the timely execution of all our media posts.

It’s 9:30 PM and MTTN has to go up with a post on their Instagram. Manisha pays close attention to the business analytics of the page. She gets the relevant graphics, art or photograph that has to go up just in time. 

She boosts the platforms audience reach and makes sure our Instagram is always aesthetically pleasing to the eye.  She continually updates our Facebook and Twitter so that all our socials are in sync and cater to any passerby.

Layana, on the other hand, is perhaps the brain behind our social media posts.

Layana is almost always filling up the monthly event calendar. She is possibly the sole reason that MTTN is never late with a post for an important day or event. If you ask her, she would probably know when it’s “World Dog Loving Day” or “Disney made Mickey Mouse Day”.
Heck, she probably knows when you’re born too, she knows everything!

She interacts with the graphics and photography departments to make sure we don’t miss a single post. She keeps a keen eye out for essential stories like #boycottmillenials. She’s also the one who ALWAYS takes down the minutes of a meeting. She also gets called an angel a lot.

 

So then, why do we need BDPR?

Well, if you hadn’t already realized, MTTN is a student-run media organization. 

That also means, without Business Development, MTTN won’t have the money to back up half the insane activities we do.

Without Public Relations, MTTN wouldn’t have the recruits, wouldn’t have the respect, nor the name it has built for its self through years and years of trust.

From sponsorship to building brand relationships BDPR handles so much more than they are credited for, without ever showing their faces in the limelight. They work behind the scenes, so much so, that events occur without ¾ of the crew knowing they were happening.

And so, we thank the BDPR team, for being the most reliable team that MTTN could have. For pushing the organization to heights we never thought possible and to help us reach closer to the stars with every signed MoU.

This is for you. For Us.

This is MTTN. WE ARE MANIPAL.

 

~ Written by Siri Rajanhally and Melissa Carlo for MTTN 

~ Photo Credits: MTTN 

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