Blue-Chips Gain Currency, Are A Prize Offering

Shares of bluechip companies are increasingly getting the status of currency notes, the position that has been long occupied by gold.

Consider this: some months ago Britannia Industries, as part of a marketing campaign, was associated with an online game, Contests2win.com. Winners of the games were rewarded with some shares of Reliance Industries.

Now, the same site is giving away 10 RIL shares as a prize for its game, "trade2win" (T2W) in its forty-first contest. The website itself is sponsoring the game. The gaming platform had also offered Infosys shares some time ago.

Why does a company or a gaming site offer shares of bluechip companies?

"The reason lies in the changing psyche of Indian middle class," says a social scientist. "With the increasing spread of National Stock Exchange (NSE) terminals in almost all nooks and corners of the country, encashing shares is no more a problem. Plus, people are getting more conscious of share trading thanks to print and electronic media," he said.

However, a city-based executive said: "Have a look at the other prizes offered by the same gaming platform -- T-shirts, watches, cash prize worth Rs 501. This clearly indicates that sponsors consider blue chip shares as lucrative a prize as T-shirts, cash and watches are."

Contests2Win chief executive officer Alok Kejriwal said after the stock market crisis in the last six months, traffic to T2W has picked up by 20 per cent. At any point there are 10,000 traders playing the game, now. And you don't lose money in T2W.

The game is entirely based on trading. On clicking the trade2win game, the contestant is at once greeted with a charged bull. Trade2win provides the contestant with Rs 10 lakh, which is to be utilised in trading 30 blue chip stocks. The contestant can sell or buy depending on whether he is bullish or bearish.

Note: a live ticker is displayed on the screen. The game is played over a period of time and then the winner is adjudged on the value of his portfolio. Good luck!