Brand Equity Quiz 2008

Yesterday evening I attended Brand Equity Quiz 2008. It was hilarious. Quiz master Derek O'Brien has great energy and sense of humor. He looked so funny in 60's costumes. Good Pune crowd (around 500) and really great teams (total 30 I think). First round eliminated all but 7 teams. What followed was great rounds of quizzing (the theme was how quizzing was done in 60's, 70's ...till 2008). Finally TCS team won.

In first round, there was a question "So and so is called an ___". Fill the blank. One guy from audience raised his hands and said pension. Bad English !.

Here are some funny one-lines from Derek.
"Right answer. The team looks surprised at that."
"Everything I say today, just take it personally."
"I was going to give 5 points to that team for talking about figures and things of that sort".

One guy won whopping 3000 Rs for knowing that umbrellas are sometimes called "gamps", mainly in Britain and another one won big amount for recognizing a clip from recent 3rd class Bollywood movie (who said bad movies are bad for you).

Good to see Jug Suraiya (he writes in Times Of India and has a comic strip called Dubyaman) and his wife Bunny come on stage.

I was more than happy to see lots of sponsorship. I think spending advertising budget by sponsoring quizzing event is just a fabulous idea. You can already see me talking good things about sponsors like Kingfisher (who sent air-hostesses so beautiful that I almost fell in love) and Nokia on my blog (you get an Idea). Given the extraordinary content of my blog, I estimate trillions of people read my blog :).

I think right now companies are spending (wasting?) their advertising budget on TV (those crap channels who broadcast pictures of bus hitting a donkey as national breaking news) and Cricket. Online advertising and budget optimization will take some time to catch up in India. My point is there are lots of venues/possibilities for effective use of advertising budget. This is even true because India is distinctly different from west when it comes to buying habits and influencing factors.

"You are just 100 meters away from this. Get down at next stop."

For example, imagine I am going from Powai to Brandra by BEST bus (in Mumbai) and when bus reaches near Hiranandani gardens, wouldn't it be nice to display advertisement of newly opened shop in Hiranandani. Just in case Olive Garden decides to open in India. Do not forget me when you use this idea :). Point is think about targeted advertising, agreed it is tough and challenging, but isn't that a good thing.

My mouth is watery. BTW appetizer in the picture is Bruschetta (Olive Garden) . I had it one Italian restaurant in, surprise T.Nagar, Chennai.