The Hindu Business Line : Cricketing woes

The Indian team is back and the woes for Sony have begun. Advertisers want rates to be re-negotiated. The channel owners and the agency heads have issued a joint letter stating that the sanctity of the contracts should be preserved, but with media agencies already singing their clients' tunes in the newspaper columns, one pities Sony.

Next time around, everyone will be a little wiser and contracts will be cast in stainless steel. And for lower amounts, for sure. No more "Hoo Ha India!" Just wapas aaya India. Thank the Lord, Pepsi's agency made its `famous' film some time ago. They must have collected their charges by now. Otherwise along with SET, they would also be wringing their hands with worry.

One is sure that any commercial based on the Indian cricket team will now be a little more circumspect. Remember the "mind and body, heart and soul" commercial starring three veteran cricketers and Ehsaan, Shankar Mahadevan and Loy? Sorry, we cannot remember the name of the brand. Now, we will never have a chance of seeing it again. Maybe the advertiser is glad we cannot remember his name. We would be embarrassed at having gone overboard like that!

Amby is 50!

Some really good PR agency has been organising great write-ups about the golden jubilee of the Ambassador car, or Amby as we know it. We did our own dipstick survey and here's what we came up with: The Amby is good for the Government babus. After all, they are two of a kind. Slow, archaic, costly to maintain and good at PR. Another gem we heard was that the venerable G. D. Birla was told he was sure to go to heaven. When he asked why, he was told that his product, the Amby, made everyone who drove in it think of God several times a day. So for all those lucky young people who have not driven in an Amby, hitch a ride with a Babu or hire a car from a small taxi operator. Want to know why? You never know the value of the shade till you step out into the scorching sun.

Subhas Ghosal Foundation

The SGF (we keep thinking we are misspelling the great man's name, but we aren't) is organising the second in its `Provocations' series on April 13. We remember the first one where it brought Alyque (God) Padamsee and Piyush (Guru) Pandey onto the same stage. The evening bristled with great prospects, but everyone decided to be boringly polite and good. Now it has lined up Vinita (Britannia) Bali with R. (Balki) Balakrishnan.

Sounds good. One is a big FMCG advertiser and the other a big creative head who loves to look and sound unorthodox. Let's hope Balki doesn't go all coy on stage when he shares it with an advertiser. Hope flares eternal again.

Coke (burp)!

Coke's latest: A `grosser'

We grew up being told to be polite. And then we saw the new Coke commercial with Aamir (burp) Khan. Looks like in the gritty quest for a `different' cola commercial, Coke has decided to gross us all out completely.

As if it wasn't enough listening to everyone in a bus burp, Aamir Khan then decides that a burp is par for the course and grinning like a Cheshire cat lets out a few satisfied ones. For burping out aloud, do we need this, and that too all in the name of creativity?

Business India awards

Business India rolled out the silver jubilee of its Businessman of the Year award in Mumbai, at the racecourse. It must be mentioned that Business India started off this whole business award game 25 years ago and every wannabe now sports one, with a slight change in nomenclature.

We wondered why they chose the expansive lawns of the racecourse for the event, and found out that they had pulled out all the stops to make the twenty-fifth year special. Considering they managed to get nearly ten of the previous awardees on stage together, and please note that these included the likes of Vaghul, Deepak Parekh, Kumarmangalam Birla and Rahul Bajaj, the gathering was pretty impressive. This year's award went to Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge. Ashok Advani and Pheroza Bilimoria played the perfect hosts to the rather large crowd.

Victoria invites comments at brandline@thehindu.co.in

Victoria

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Welcome to the ignorance economy!

Cricketing woes

De-risking the name of the game

Tales of a traveller

The cold war

The Esprit behind the brand

Calling corporate leaders

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