Two theatres of high-voltage drama that currently grip the nation are politics and cricket. And both make strong cases on how opportunity lies waiting for marketers to explore.

Thrills, spills & opportunities

Business Standard

There has been a flurry of super-premium vodka launches.

Fizz biz gets pricy

His trademark smile hides the anxiety about the tough times media agencies are going through due to the economic slowdown. But Sam Balsara, chairman of Madison, feels things would improve from now on. &ldquo;We had predicted that there would be a drastic negative impact in the first six months of this calendar year, part of which would be made up in the next six months. The market is behaving as per our prediction,&rdquo; Balsara tells Sapna Agarwal in an interview.

'Media agencies can become easy targets'

Star Plus is rewriting the rule book to take on its latest rival.

Can Star outshine Colors?

    In the early 1900s, this company was often referred to as &ldquo;a bunch of farmers&rdquo; in its country since the workers in its manufacturing facilities were initially agricultural hands. Today, the company is regarded as the most efficient and highest quality manufacturer in the world. Name the company and why was it called so.

Answers to last week's quiz (#096)

Cash-rich Russian telecom major Sistema plans a significant share in the saturated Indian mobile services market.

Red rolls out

Will Aircel sell?

    Who said: &ldquo;I expect the personal computer to become the kind of thing that people carry with them.

The Strategist Quiz (#097)

MANAGING THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRM
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MAJOR ACCOUNT SALES STRATEGY
Author: Neil Rackham
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 1,397
0070511144.
EXPERT PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Author: Brian Lawley
Publisher: Happy About
Price: Rs 1,042
ISBN: 1600050794.
THE BOOK OF LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY
Author: Thomas Cleary
Publisher: Random House
Price: Rs 843
ISBN: 0877736677.



MARKET OPPORTUNITY

The top 10 business bestsellers

Image-guided and other advanced surgeries will help decrease the number of days for hospital stay substantially, in some cases by two weeks.

KIT: Healthcare improvements

Sodhiji, a middle-aged Sikh played by brand ambassador Aamir Khan, is driving his car and criticising the hype around cricket. Making matters worse is Tata Sky&rsquo;s superior picture clarity which makes TV viewing addictive. He complains that while he stands in queues to pay bills, his son watches cricket on Tata Sky.

Campaign logic Tata Sky: Reverse psychology

National carrier Air India has positioned itself clearly between the full-service airlines (Kingfisher and Jet) and budget carriers (IndiGo, Spice and JetLite).

Air India: The middle path

Zee Business, the business news channel of the Zee Group, has increased its market share almost 100 per cent in the last one year. Launched in November 2004, it was the country&rsquo;s first Hindi business channel. However, it failed to make a mark. Up until one year ago, the channel lacked direction and a clear positioning. With a market share of approximately 11 per cent, it trailed CNBC, CNBC Awaaz and NDTV Profit by a huge margin.

Zee Business: Go local, get an audience

Rajesh Saxena recently moved from Citibank in Japan to become the chief executive of American Express Banking Corp, India. Saxena started his career with Hindustan Unilever and has spent 18 years in consumer and retail banking in five different geographies: India, Israel, Turkey, the UAE and Japan. He was a part of the core Citibank team when it launched credit cards in India in the early-1990s. The market today is different. Delinquencies are on the rise, consumers are spending less.

'Overseas spending has affected us'

Shah Rukh Khan&rsquo;s name sells not only in Bollywood but also on television. The latest data from TAM Media Research reveal he endorsed the highest number of brands during 2008 on television, closely followed by India&rsquo;s cricket captain, MS Dhoni.

Shah Rukh, Dhoni top brand pushes on TV

With 250 days of cricket in the year, and soaring ratings, this has become the surest way to draw in advertisers.

Surajeet Das Gupta: 20:20 ways to beat the slowdown

Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM), the management school of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP), has launched shaadieasy.com, at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, to address the challenge of marriage logistics.

VGSOM students launch portal

With an aim to prevent maternal deaths and assess the Gujarat's capacity for implementing emergency obstetric care through first referral units (FRU), a study by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) has assessed the regional and district level capacity of the state government to operationalise FRUs for providing Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) in order to prevent maternal mortality and laid down recommendations to strengthen EmOC.

IIMA studies FRUs in Gujarat to strengthen midwifery and EmOC

The battle for branded nimbu paani market is geting hotter with Coca-Cola India set to take on PepsiCo and Parle Agro by launching a lemon drink this summer.

Coke, Pepsi add a dash of lemon to cola war

Bidya S Sahay took over from C V Baxi as the new director of Gurgaon-based Management Development Institute (MDI) on April 1, 2009. He was director at the Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad, since 2005. Prior to that, he was the Dean (Research and Consultancy) and Professor of Operations Management at MDI. In a chat with Kirtika Suneja, he shares his plans for the institute where he worked for nearly nine years.

'What matters most is the quality of placements'

The economic slowdown appears to have taken a toll on satellite education or virtual classrooms for professionals too as corporate sponsorships dry up for sponsored executive education programmes. B-schools say the applications for satellite programmes for 2009 have either remained flat or seen a drop close to 10 per cent.

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