India Business Blog | Funding & Telecom Trends | » Ankit Agarwal

Brand India is on a roll – The West getting even more interested?

Ankit Agarwal — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:22:24 +0000

Amidst all the recession and the economic downturn hulla boo in recent times , one major positive has been the resurgence of India as a nation to reckon with. Not that India was not walking shoulder to shoulder (at least in some areas) with the global leaders, but the recent downturn made India stand out as a comparatively insulated economy in the global marketplace.

We had our share of losses and downfall but then we are the first ones coming out of the rut. The industrial growth numbers are looking up , the stock markets are doing comparatively well, SME and SMB sector is on the growth highway. More than that, the past year has seen a flurry of entrepreneurs leaving the corporate whoredom which again is a positive for any economy.

However, a few recent events that transpired got me thinking that Brand India is gaining traction and doing it real fast. The world is looking up to us as one of the underexploited marketplace with immense potential. The events may not be of significant importance and scale but the message is delivered loud and clear,

Brand India is a name to reckon with

Volkswagen comes to India in style

The German carmaker Volkswagen AG has embarked on a Rs. 40 crore ad campaign to build its brand in the run-up to its December launch of small car Beetle and sports utility vehicle Touareg and the January launch of another small car, the Polo.

The campaign partner TOI created a one of its kind print roadblock for Volkswagen brands to increase the visibility of Volkswagen before it hits the road. The campaign drew a lot of flak from the readers and was marred by controversy (cached link) but still created a buzz around Volkswagen.

Volkswagen has even set up a manufacturing unit in Pune for production of one of it cars -Polo. Considering all these, the message is loud and clear from Volkswagen

We are dead serious about Indian Markets (Small Car explains that) and we are ready to make inroads (40 crore for ad campaign is substantial by any standards)

TechCrunch goes ga-ga over India Inc

The epitome of cutting edge technology news is the holy grail for Startups and VC’s alike. The news that goes live on TechCrunch can become a trend in no time. No matter what (and he has enough detractors), Michael Arrington pulls a lot of clout in the Silicon Valley – And now with Indian centric articles being featured so very frequently, it does speaks volumes about the visibility of Indian Companies in the west.

TechCrunch ran insightful articles featuring MakeMyTrip andÂ NIIT recently which show Indian companies taking centre stage. A recent article by Vivek Wadhwa on India becoming a Global R&D Hub is a shot in the arm. It signifies that India truly has the potential to become a Creator rather merely being a supporter (via Outsourcing) .

The world is keenly following Indian Shores and is in awe of it, even though it is hard to digest for some

These two events may not be a testimony to the fact that Brand India is set for Glory days , but the way I see it, we are sure taking the right steps. We have our shortcomings and a lot of them. But, even with these shortcomings and limitations(primarily infrastructure), Indians are setting the global stage on fire.

On a rather sad note, it is disheartening to see that even when the world is recognizing the potential of Brand India , we are still fighting over petty things like regionalism, language etc (you get the hint) .

The onus should be on providing a free flourishing ecosystem where creativity can breed freely and India can shun its developing country and transform into a world power.

The west is definitely in awe and does not look up to India merely as a place to get dirty work done for cheap (yeah, that’s outsourcing for you :) ) .

What are your thoughts on India’s progress at the global stage??

A branding faux pas by DGCA – and why crowd sourcing may not for everyone

Arun Prabhudesai — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:47:13 +0000

I am a staunch believer of Crowd Sourcing or the power of many. The potential of tapping into the minds and creativity is huge and can bear fruits. More so, if the initiative is for defining the Brand who better than the end user/customer.

In the end, it is the customer perception that defines the brand at large. Unilever was the latest to use the power of the crowd to define its brand identity, Pepsi has been using it too.

But, then why isn’t everyone doing it? it is because the Brand Identity is a very crucial element of any organization, and more often , companies prefer leaving the brand identity part to professionals. The one’s who successfully uses the power of crowd do enough groundwork and ensure they channelize / promote the campaign in a subtle way to get the maximum out of the crowd sourcing exercise.

We have a lot of success stories about how companies world over are utilizing Crowdsourcing to better their brand presence. For a change, lets see How a certain organization has got it completely wrong in their Brand building exercise.

I chanced upon the recent announcement by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) which is aimed at restructuring its brand identity. According to the official announcement,

Directorate General of Civil Aviation intends to coin a “slogan” and create a “logo” reflecting its role, functions and motto which can be easily comprehended by the common man.

A first ever move of sorts by a government firm of the DGCA’s stature to re-visit its brand identity and trying to get it from the common man. So far so good , the idea looks good enough. But, the next part of the writing is what makes it interesting.

Hence, it is requested that those who are interested to coin a “slogan” and create a “logo” in respect of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, may send their slogan and logo to this office at the earliest.

Now, this is where it all goes haywire!

A clear branding faux pas and a probable worthless branding exercise of sorts. The DGCA has clearly not their groundwork to ensure they get the result out of this exercise.

You can’t expect the common man to have a vision for what DGCA stands for , can you? I consider myself Mango (aam) man and can’t define what DGCA stands for. They should have defined certain parameters for the common man to define the company on.

The target audience is too huge to expect a fruitful result of the brand exercise. Given the bureaucracy that government organizations are in-famous with , is DGCA actually going to monitor and analyze each and every application that comes to them as a part of this exercise.

I am not a brand or a market expert , but this definitely does not make any sense to me. The motive of DGCA might have been noble but the way the execution roadmap has been defined looks weak to say the least.

Wouldn’t it better if a more conventional approach would have been taken by DGCA. With a possible reward for the best design , DGCA could have at least ensured that people put in their best efforts to define Brand DGCA in the best way possible.

The official Source is here DGCA plans to coin slogan, create logo

What are your thoughts ? Is DGCA going to get any positives out of this branding exercise?

[This post is written by Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Finance Friday: Why Should The Investor Suffer From Scams Like Pyramid Saimira

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:38:33 +0000

It is said that Bad News spreads like wild fire. Throw Stock Markets in the mix and the fire turns into forest fire burning down tons of cash. The Indian Stock Markets have been doing rather well hovering around 16k levels for some time now with short-lived bear/bull rallies.

So, when you see the usual “Sensex shoots up 500 points” kind of title , there is a little joy of seeing the portfolio seeing some green. For a medium to long term investor, the headline does not mean too much and things go on. But, what if every newspaper / finance website reads:

SEBI slaps a 7 year ban on Pyramid Saimira from accessing the Capital Markets

It attracts immediate attention and in some cases and immediate call of action.What the indictment means is that SEBI has banned the company from dealing in stock markets for seven years after it found that the company colluded with seven persons to corner the portion reserved for employees in its initial public offer in 2006.

SEBI has been rather active in trying to unearth the dirt in the Indian Equity Markets and the SATYAM debacle surely ensured the need to nab on the illegal stock market manipulations – that too before heavy damage is caused to retail Investors.

In the case of Pyramid Saimira like many others, the chairman strongly denies the allegation. Now, I am no judge of whether a manipulation actually took place or not. SEBI will hopefully drill it down to details in due course of time.

What affects me is the fact that announcements like this wreck havoc for the retail investors who are invested in the companies. To get an idea of the potential damage these announcements can do to your portfolio, figure this

Pyramid Saimira Theatre on Wednesday nosedived nearly ten per cent to hit the lower circuit on the Bombay Stock Exchange

Now, if you were an innocent investor in the aforesaid stock and you came back to your portfolio , you wouldn’t know what hit you. The scale of the loss is huge and there is nothing you can do about it.

There are two possible implications of a news like this:

If the allegations are valid, then at least there is some consolation that SEBI warned you about the worthlessness of the stock. A stock market manipulation reeks of shabby management and a mis-managed company is not to be touched.

But, a sudden news like this and the stock hitting lower circuit does not allow me to cut my losses and run too.

If the allegations come out as falsified even though unlikely, that’s when I think the retail investor becomes the scapegoat of such announcements.

A 10% single day loss can kill all the growth momentum of the stock even if the company never did anything wrong. Who do you blame for your bleeding portfolio.

I am not sure if there is any justification / solution to the problem – The frauds definitely need to be exposed but is there a better way to do it. But, can a way be devised so that the retail investor has time to think and act.

This kind of news based panic selling for sure does not fare well with the retail investor like you and me.

Do you think SEBI can devise a way to bring out the news in a fashion that it does not cause panic selling or rather it is better to have the news exposed as early as possible and at the time when the markets are functioning

How would you as an investor in Pyramid Saimira react to news like this?

[This Finance Friday post is written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Sixth Sense For Real and Open Source Too

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:30:19 +0000

If Hollywood Sci-Fi movies make you jump from you seats and be in awe of the hero using gizmos that are seemily out of this world, here is something that is as good as the mind blowing technology that you see on screen but this time it is for real.

Remember the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise uses finger gestures to control an interactive video screen. How cool would it that be if you and I could do something similar even if it is not for saving the world :)

Now an Indian has invented, which from the looks of it has the potential of being a true technological breakthrough and enable people to carry their Sixth Sense with them.

The project named Sixth Sense is the brain child of Pranav Mistry, a 28-year-old research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

The demo was shown first during the TED conference in California in February 09. The crowd were super awed by his technological breakthrough, which actually cost no more than 350 dollars.

This time around, during TED India conference at Mysore, Pranav Mistry was back with more details into the product and further announcements regarding the Sixth Sense technology.

The detailed demo of the Sixth Sense technology is hair-raising by any accounts but I will let you be the judge of it:

If you did see the complete video the reactions could well have been “mind blowing”, “exciting”, “un-believable” etc. I had to watch it more than twice to come to terms that the augmented reality demoed is for real.

The concept is amazing and if the inventors are to be believed, the device which is made using off the shelf components would cost around 350$ .

What’s more, this time, Instead of selling the technology to a big techno giant like Apple or Microsoft, Mr.Pranav Mistry wants to make it Open Source – And that has increased the value of this awesome product way beyond anything I have seen in recent times.

His reasons for making it open source are interesting too,

“I notice that it’s hard to for these kind of things to market in some sense. . . because I don’t want this to comply with some of kind of corporate policy,” he told PTI in Mysore on Friday on the sidelines of TED conference being held in India for the first time.

“Rather than waiting for that time to come, I want people to make their own system. Why not?”

I am not sure what he means by “hard to market”. This thing sure has huge potential even though it may not be a mass-market product. But then, making it open source will see many more innovations and developments which could go a long way in making Sixth Sense a true information enabler as i see it.

It’s a shame though that the brain child of an Indian techie may not hold much water in the India. The pre-requisite for the devise is the all important “Mobile Internet”.Â We all know the woos India is going through with this 3G business which is so imperative for a good Mobile Internet use.

The internet in your mobile phone is what powers this device to pull the relevant information. With Indian Internet Infrastructure still very much nascent, I do not see a lot of contribution from the Indian Open Source community even when the project is Open Sourced.

There is no doubting the technological prowess of the Indian minds , hell the project is a baby of an Indian IIT graduate , it is the lack of right infrastructure that is a deterrent here.

More so, the technology makes more sense for developing countries where getting the relevant data at the right time is a tedious and cumbersome process. This fact was bought out by Mr. Pranav Mistry too during the demo,

“It is more relevant to this world than it is to the developed world,” On another note, the amazing technology and its Indian creator made me think about the folks who go on and on about the Indian Brain Drain and how it is affecting India.I just have one question for them,

We have the brains and if we can do it sitting in an MIT lab, what would stop us from doing it in India.

But, the reality is that we are so many light years away from providing the much needed infrastructure for the world class technological breakthroughs to emerge out of India. So, instead of blaming the intellectual folks for choosing foreign shores, the focus should be on providing a world class platform for creative ideas to flourish and see the light of the day.

What are your thoughts on the Sixth Sense technology and its far reaching potential? Does it have the where with all’s to become a mass market product.

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

BCCI getting bigger than Manchester United in sponsorship?

Arun Prabhudesai — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:24:30 +0000

BCCI (Board of control for cricket in India) is undoubtedly the richest Cricket Control board in the world. The earnings have multiplied many times, thanks to the money spinning brain child of Mr.Lalit Modi – Indian Premier League (IPL) .

The structure of the IPL was much on the lines of how the football clubs leagues work eg : English Premier League (EPL). The initiative invited lot of doubts initially with people unsure if the Indian Cricket Audience is ready for a state wise loyalty but IPL came through and we all know what a grand success story it is.

Cashing on the ever increasing popularity of IPL and its increasing brand value, BCCI has decided to up the stakes for sponsors vying for an opportunity to get associated with Team India.

The fresh bids for jersey sponsorship might see BCCI overtake one of the biggest football clubs in the world-Manchester United.

RedDevils’s current t-shirt sponsorship deal is approximately Rs. 650 crores for 4 years whereas BCCI is expecting around Rs.800 crore in sponsorship money for a 4 year deal. (Source: Espn)

BCCI is asking for a minimum reserve price of Rs 3 crore for each Test, ODI or Twenty20 game. Interesting to note here is that BCCI is asking the same price for Twenty 20 even though this format of the game has the least duration.

But, with the increasing popularity of the version, the sponsors might as well get the best bang out of their buck even if the eyeball attraction time is comparatively smaller.

The current sponsor SAHARA is paying around 2 crore each for an ODI and a Test match and Rs 1.5 crore for a T20 game. With the fresh bids rolling out, SAHARA might have to reconsider their sponsorship or be ready to dole out truck loads of cash.

BCCI has pulled out a rabbit from the hat with IPL as far as the revenues are concerned. Moreover, along with increasing revenues the brand value of Team India (BCCI) has zoomed too.

The stakes have been raised many folds but will the ROI (Return on Interest) also increase correspondingly for the sponsors. The sponsors will be betting on attracting maximum eyeballs wherever Indian team is playing.

But, shouldn’t the team performance act as an influencing factor too. If the team performance does not match the expectations of the audience, will enough people be watching the Sponsor’s logo on the player’s jerseys.

I have my doubts but then given the buzz surrounding the IPL and Indian team’s decent performance, the bidding process might attract enough players trying to outbid each other.

Do you think the BCCI will have enough bidders for the new deal or the asking price is too high this time around?

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Broadband for Rural India

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:57:45 +0000

You must be joking right? When seamless broadband connectivity is a dream even for the urban population, how is the broadband going to spread to the rural areas with little or no infrastructure in place.

But, BSNL is out there to change the notion and kick start a project to have the rural sector connected like never before.

State-run BSNL will set up 30,000 broadband kiosks in rural and remote areas in the next two years on a franchisee basis. (Source: ET)

BSNL is planning to tie with partners to build a network of around 30,000 broadband kiosks and provide services to people at a small fee. They are targeting areas which have no alternative facilities for accessing the internet.

BSNL has making the right steps in the direction too. ICT systems integration firm HCL Info systems have partnered on the National Broadband Penetration Program (NBPP), a nationwide initiative to accelerate IT proliferation in rural India. The partnership is aimed at providing affordable broadband connectivity to the rural areas.

Come to think of it, rural India has a meaty contribution to the GDP and it makes sense to provide the stakeholders with better resources to enhance productivity.

It is however difficult to buy into the fact that the plan will not be marred into the usual bureaucracy like any other initiatives coming from the government. Most of the times, the projects are conceptualized and announcements made, but the execution seldom happens the right way.

But, this time around, the conceptualization has some salient features which might just make it work

The partnership with HCL should ensure that one important of the infrastructure will be taken care of by a professional (private) company.
The franchise model will provide a motivation for the stakeholders to ensure that the project sees the light of the day. The franchise owners will try to work towards providing the much needed maintenance and support
BSNL is going to feature 4 partners for 4 zone (North, East, South, West) with one sector taken care of by one partner. This should decrease the operation and management overhead for BSNL

BSNL is betting on the franchise model and possibly create a self sustaining model as a result. However, the partner selection will need to have stringent benchmarking standards to ensure that the partners bring the required operational experience to the table.

All in all, a great initiative which if achieves half of its projected targets will go a long way in connecting rural India to rest of the world. Imagine a farmer logging into the internet to see the weather forecast and plan his activity accordingly.

The dream of a connected India will however come true only if the project gets executed well and is affordable enough for everyone to make effective use of it.

Only then would BSNL would be able to justify its Advertising mantra,

“Hindustan Bol raha he”

What do you think? Will BSNL be able to pull it off and connect the rural India?

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Unilever goes Crowd Sourcing for their new TV & Ad Campaign

Arun Prabhudesai — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:39:04 +0000

I have been a staunch supporter of Crowd sourcing ever since I hopped on to twitter. The ability to utilize the brains of a group of people collectively for a solution is indeed powerful. In my previous discussion on Crowdsourcing providing the winning edge , the discussions hinted that crowd sourcing works for e-businesses, Web 2.0 and non-profit organizations. My conversations at other platforms concerning crowd sourcing resulted in pretty much the same conclusion making me ponder,

Would Multi-National Companies risk crowd sourcing even when they have fat pockets?

There were some valid enough reasons to suggest that big corporations may not risk their brand identity and value proposition by resorting to crowd sourcing.

But, when the benefits are humongous and the price of getting the job done strikingly low, I say why not?

Unilever is offering $10,000 (Â£6,087) in a competition to find ideas for its next TV campaign for snack food brand Peperami, using its quirky Animal character, as it decides to drop its ad agency of 16 years-LOWE and turning to crowd sourcing for creative ideas.

"We believe Peperami is a brand that deserves radical creative solutions and are confident taking our brief out to thousands rather than a small team of creative’s will provide us with the best possible idea and take our advertising to the next level," said the Peperami marketing manager, Noam Buchalter. (Source: Gaurdian UK)

The campaign was executed via a famous crowd sourcing provider Idea Bounty and the best ideas will be selected for the print and ad campaign for Peperami’s new snack tentatively titled Peperami Bites.

The complete brief for the Peperami campaign can be read here.

The response to the campaign has been phenomenal and much above the expectations of the company and the organizers. The winners are yet to be declared though.

The move from one of the best advertising agency – LOWE to Crowd Sourcing for a meager $10k. A drop in the ocean for Unilever and I wouldn’t be surprised if the results are even more effective.

Clearly, Crowd Sourcing is arriving big time even at the corporate stage. The benefits are far more than just reduced cost and more creativity.

Crowd Sourcing builds the much needed buzz around the product at virtually no cost

The campaign has received a lot of press coverage, their facebook fan page is buzzing with the quirky animal mascot character which is creating the kind of excitement needed for a new snack brand.

What say? Even the big corporate are not shying away to crowd source their operations and not just any operations, it is the Brand Building exercise in the case of Unilever.

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Finance Friday: How Infosys made Billions – Made Millions for its shareholders too !

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:55:22 +0000

Infosys – The IT bellwether was instrumental in putting Indian IT prowess on the global map. Mr. Narayana Murthy, a first generation entrepreneur executed his dream to perfection. Today, the multi-billion dollar company gives you no idea that it originated in a dinky garage.

The last post on Why Warren Buffet Makes money and you don’t garnered great discussions and conversations, and most of the discussion stemmed from the fact that Long Term Investment is the key to any successful portfolio.

Given Arun’s addiction for data and stats I wasn’t surprised when he asked me dig in and find out the long term returns of Infosys. The company has been in the stock market for long and I was sure that the returns would be amazing. But boy was I stunned or what !

The capital appreciation via Infosys shares is out of this world. But, let’s go down the history lane to find out how it all originated

In 1982, Infosys opened an office in Bangalore which soon became its headquarters.
Infosys made an initial public offer at Rs. 95 a share in February 1993 and was listed on stock exchanges in India in June 1993
Interestingly, Infosys IPO was undersubscribed but Morgan Stanley bailed it put by picking up 13% of equity at the offer price of Rs. 95 per share.
The trading opened at Rs.145 a share, almost a 60% premium on the day of listing.
The share price surged to Rs. 8,100 by 1999 making it the costliest share on the market at the time. 6 years and the share multiplied 85 times
According to Forbes magazine, since listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange till the year 2000, Infosys’ sales and earnings compounded at more than 70% a year.

Your head spinning as yet!! Wait before I tell you the numbers that are hair raising.

Infosys is currently trading at Rs. 2228 (NSE) – which is close 23 times of its IPO price – But more than that it has given handsome dividends quarter on quarter. And don’t forget the bonuses and splits that this share has gone through.

Infosys Stock Bonuses Splits since IPO:

Fiscal	Bonus share issue	Stock split ratio
1986	1:1	2 for 1
1989	1:1	2 for 1
1991	1:1	2 for 1
1992	1:1	2 for 1
1994	1:1	2 for 1
1997	1:1	2 for 1
1999	1:1	2 for 1
2000	-	2 for 1
2004	3:1	4 for 1
2006	1:1	2 for 1

Here is what you would have if you had 100 share in 1993 at IPO bought at Rs. 95 /-

Your Total investment in Infosys in 1993– Rs. 9,500/- (100 shares at Rs. 95)
Your Total investment in Infosys as of today (2009) – 28,51,8400/- (12800 shares at 2228)

If you had invested Rs. 9500 in Infosys in 1993, today you would be sitting on more than 30 crores 3 crores (including dividends around 50 lakh) (thnkx Sandeep for correction)

I sure was too small to buy during the IPO stage, but then I am not going to miss out this time. Even though I don’t track IT stocks, writing this post made me realize that Company Fundamentals and Management capability of Infosys makes it worthwhile to study the stock further to understand the Intrinsic value at the current price.

I am reminded of the famous dialogue from the movie “Guru” which roughly translated means,

“Do you want me to become the biggest company of the world”

This is symbolic with how the Stock market investments should be seen as. Buy shares to buy a stake in the company and not to make quick profits from it.

What say? Are you one of the lucky few to have made their millions from Infosys or you have your own stock market riches story to share.

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

ZooZoos –Out From the Chatter Box and On to your clothes

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:59:50 +0000

Can you think of an advertisement campaign that became a phenomenon? Rather, an advertisement character that caught the eyeballs of one and all?

I am sure you don’t have to think too much and probably already have the answer – An advertising phenomenon during this year’s IPL T20 tournament.

The alien looking yet very human egg headed Vodafone mascot-ZooZoo

Vodafone did as much to get the maximum traction in terms of advertising during the IPL T20 series. Created by none other than O & M India, each of the 30 ads promoted a different value-added service on offer by Vodafone, from maps to stock alerts. The ZooZoo characters became a rage with the TV audience and the disclosure that the ZooZoo characters are human made it go viral.

The popularity of the ZooZoo characters has, unlike other mascots not been a short-term affair. The characters have extended beyond the campaign and it can be gauged from this simple piece of information.

ZooZoo fan club on Facebook has a whopping 319,098 fans as of today !

With the characters getting larger than life and popular beyond even their imagination, Vodafone has chanced upon the opportunity to launch exclusive ZooZoo Merchandise to cash on the Popularity.

Vodafone has signed a licensing deal with retail chain Shoppers Stop to launch ZooZoo merchandise across the country.

The deal will give exclusive rights to Shoppers Stop to manufacture and retail official Zoozoo merchandise in specified categories across all Shoppers Stop stores in the country, Vodafone said in a statement.

To top it all and ensure that the Brand “Vodafone” is not lost in the ZooZoo’s promotion, here is another amazing marketing ploy.

Vodafone customers can enjoy 10 per cent discount on their purchases of Zoozoo merchandise (Source: ZooZoo FB fan page. Yes, I am a fan too :)

What makes the licensing deal of ZooZoo’s special is captured in the statement issued by Shoppers Stop Vice-President (marketing and loyalty), Vinay Bhatia

“This is a first-of-its-kind arrangement in the history of India’s advertising that a brand mascot is being licensed for merchandising”

Telecom companies have been at the forefront of ad-wars with each brand going out of their way to come up with a innovative themed ad campaign. No doubt, they spend a fortune paying the creative ad creators like O & M .

But, Vodafone has from the looks of it creating a completely indirect revenue stream out of their ZooZoo campaign. Given the kind of footfalls that Shopper Stop attracts, I won’t be surprised if the egg-headed mascot merchandise is swept off the shelf.

What will be interesting to watch though is, if Vodafone is able to maintain the ZooZoo popularity and more than that, its brand identity.

If ZooZoo becomes a brand in itself (which it surely) is, Vodafone might find itself in a Catch-22 situation. Vodafone needs to ensure that ZooZoo and Vodafone are spoken in one breath.

So, are you buying your ZooZoo T-shirt today?

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]