Mahindra SUV's 'tiger' safari

The Mahindra group's ad films usually have an underlying theme of adventure emphasising the brand's positioning as the maker of sleek and sturdy automobiles. Around the launch of a new sports-utility vehicle (SUV), group chairman Anand Mahindra had compared it to a cheetah and the competition to rabbits. An advertisement film showed a cheetah jumping on the SUV's bonnet to the delight of the passengers inside. Little would the ad film makers have thought that their creative was not very far from reality. On Monday, Anand Mahindra retweeted a post that was linked to an auto website that showed an adult tiger in a tiger sanctuary in Africa (the tiger is not native to that continent) climbing on top of a Mahindra SUV and chewing on the spare tyre. The feline then dozed off and even took a short ride, the film showed. At the speed the "Mahindra" tiger is going viral, it might soon beat the cheetah.