BRAND WORLD 11>

MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY, 22 MAY 2019

URVI MALVANIA & T E NARASIMHANMumbai/Chennai, 21 May

Virat Kohli is every-where, not just gettinghis gear on for the

upcoming month-and-a-halflong ICC World Cup that isbarely ten days away, but alsoon every screen; plying friend-ly taxi rides, shoes and sports-wear, he is asking viewers tocheer the team on as they bat-tle for the Cup. Even as Kohliwhips up the loudest buzz, histeam mates MS Dhoni, RishabPant and former players are alladding to the noise made bybrands cracking their bat atthe biggest game of them all.

No surprise this, for as therecent report by ESPProperties showed, in India,cricket beats all other sportshollow when it comes to spon-sorships and the World Cup isan opportunity no brandwants to miss. Cricket, whichhad accounted for 63 per centof team sponsorship amountsin 2017, rose to 68 per cent incontribution in 2018, thereport said.

The big catch for mostbrands is the young male con-sumer. Be it automobilebrand Nissan, or sportsapparel and footwear brandPuma, or Britannia, the targetis the same. But for others,such as Uber, the associationpresents a different opportu-nity. It helps seal its associa-tion with the country andestablish itself as a globalbrand committed to local val-ues.

Manisha Lath Gupta, headof marketing, Uber India &South Asia said with an esti-mated global viewing audi-ence of 1.5 billion, the World

Cup is one of the mostwatched sporting events.Uber said that this is itsbiggest branding activity inthe country. And as part of itsinitiatives for the tourna-ment, it has created an ICCWorld Cup 2019 anthem,applying a common market-ing practice for footballleagues to the game of crick-et. Apart from the campaign,Uber also has a contest whereusers score runs for every rideon the cab-hailing app andtheir food-ordering platformUber Eats. The points can beadded up to win prizes,including a trip to Englandfor a World Cup match. It isalso running contest for itsdriver partners and fooddelivery agents. “That's howwe are bringing the deliverycommunity together. In someways we are bringing thebackseat and front seat in thecar together, building a biggerhuman connect," said Gupta.The campaign is helmed byKohli who is also Uber’sbrand ambassador.

Kohli is driving Puma’scampaign for the World Cuptoo. The brand will launch anew limited collector's editionproduct for Kohli, a new setof cricket merchandise underthe Puma and Kohli's One8umbrella and there will alsobe a song-and-dance routine.Puma has signed on rapperDivine who will create a spe-cial music video with Kohlithat will be unveiled on May30, the day of the first matchof the tournament.

Nissan is pushing its latestSUV model Kicks through theWorld Cup. Car owners get ashot at winning an all-expens-es-paid trip for big matches.The company is also flyingtop 25 Nissan dealer partnerswith their families for thegame. Sriram Padmanabhan,vice president, marketing,Nissan India said, “Since theIndian audience has a highaffinity towards the sport, theassociation helps us build astrong connect with our targetaudience.”

Nissan has benefited from

its association with cricket.Padmanabhan added that the2017 ICC Champions Trophywas a huge success with over40 million viewers in NissanTG and more than 400 mil-lion reach across socialmedia. Along with on-groundactivities Nissan is betting bigon digital this season. “Ourcontent partner Hotstar willbe the key property to garnereyeballs. We are going all outwith large scale influencermarketing and engaging con-tent for the duration of theWorld Cup,” he said.

Britannia is bringing backa 20-year-old campaign,Britannia khao World Cup jao(Bite into Britannia for a tripto the World Cup), spendingaround ~80 crore for what itcalls one of its biggest cam-paigns ever for its motherbrand. " Our association withcricket is very old and strong.We want to reignite that," AliHarris Shere, VP-marketing,Britannia Industries had saidin an earlier interview toBusiness Standard.

Brands take guard onthe World Cup pitchUber, Puma, Nissan, Britannia have already lined up for the upcoming paradeof cricketing nations, looking to align with the game and its legion of fans

Virat Kohli is the face of many brand campaigns in the run-up to the World Cup, as he is for theongoing Uber multi-country campaign (above)

A board member expressed displeasureon the definition of default. However, thecentral bank maintained it was not willingto change the definition, which will con-tinue to be as it is — from day one of fail-ure to repay the loan.

“This provision on default may remainintact in the new circular,” said the source.

The original “resolution of stressedassets” framework created a huge riftbetween the government and the RBI, andperhaps led to the exit of Urjit Patel as gov-ernor.

The framework had said accounts indefault of ~2,000 crore and above couldbe taken for a resolution process and ifthat did not fructify, the banks could thensend the companies for insolvency pro-ceedings. Importantly, even a day’s delayin servicing loans was termed default.

The Supreme Court in early April ruledthat for each account the RBI would haveto take permission from the Centre beforeallowing banks to invoke insolvency rules.

The circular fell through on technicalgrounds and the RBI had to go back to thedrawing-board for a revised one.

The board discussed “the mediumterm strategy document, covering, interalia, the mission statement and the visionstatement”, the RBI said in a release onits website.

Sources say the Vision 2022 plan,called Utkarsh 2022, which would start onJuly 1, focuses on six areas including

financial inclusion, financial stability andsustainable growth. The broad contoursof the vision were discussed at the boardmeeting and the draft policy would bepresented at the next board meeting, saidsources.

The board discussed creating a spe-cialised supervisory and regulatory cadrewithin the RBI to strengthen the supervi-sion and regulation of commercial banks,urban cooperative banks, and NBFCs.

The 576th board meet was attended byDeputy Governors N S Vishwanathan,Viral Acharya and B P Kanungo and othersenior officials of the RBI. Other directorsof the central board present were BharatDoshi, Sudhir Mankad, ManishSabharwal, Satish Marathe, SwaminathanGurumurthy, Revathy Iyer and SachinChaturvedi.

Subhash Chandra Garg, finance sec-retary and economic affairs secretary, andRajiv Kumar, secretary, Department ofFinancial Services, were present as gov-ernment directors.

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RBI rules out credit line... Mobile user basedips 22 million...The March numbers, however, reflect adifferent trend — that of cleaning uplow-paying subscriber bases to improvethe average revenue per user (ARPU), astrategy adopted by Bharti Airtel andVodafone Idea since the third quarter ofFY19. “Both the companies want to focuson the paying subscriber base. They arecleaning up their subscriber bases toimprove ARPU and improve theirEbitda margins,” said a Mumbai-basedanalyst.

Morgan Stanley analysts noted in arecent report that Vodafone Idea report-ed a 35-million reduction in the sub-scriber base in the third quarter of FY19and another 53 million in the fourth,resulting in a subscriber base of 334 mil-lion at the end of March. The analystsalso noted, “Airtel also reported a 48.5mn reduction in Q3FY19, but the move-ment in Q4FY19 has still not been dis-closed due to the ongoing rights issue.”

Experts say the decline in numbersis a positive for the incumbents. “Thecompanies decided to shed the 'incom-ing only' customers, which had chokedthe network of these service providers,”another Mumbai-based analyst said.

The results are showing. The Traidata showed the proportion of activewireless subscribers, which is measuredthrough the VLR metric, had improved.

Bharti Airtel has the maximum pro-portion (100.82 per cent) of its activewireless subscribers as against its wire-less subscribers on the date of peak VLRin March 2019. In the fourth quarter ofFY19, Vodafone Idea posted a 17 per centquarter-on-quarter (QoQ) improvementin ARPU (~104) while analysts estimateBharti Airtel’s ARPU improved by 21 percent QoQ. Amid the subscriber losses bythe two incumbents, Jio was the onlymobile service provider that witnesseda growth rate of 3.19 per cent in wirelesssubscribers in March. The monthlydecline rates of urban and rural wirelesssubscription in March were 0.93 per centand 2.99 per cent, respectively. As ofMarch 31, 2019, the private access serviceproviders held 89.74 per cent marketshare of the wireless subscribers where-as BSNL and MTNL, the two public-sec-tor access service providers, had a mar-ket share of only 10.26 per cent.

Of the 22 service areas, six showedpositive growth in wireless users inMarch 2019. The Assam service areashowed maximum growth of 2.46 percent and the Bihar service area showedthe maximum decline (4.52 per cent) intheir wireless subscribers during themonth. As of March 31, the top five wire-less broadband service providers wereJio (306.72 million), Airtel (112.26 mil-lion), Vodafone Idea (110.20 million),BSNL (12.93 million) and Tata Teleser -vices (1.68 million).

Indices fall...However, a non-NDA govern-ment may lead to a 10-15 per centcorrection in the Nifty, if we goby market reactions in 2004 and2009 to big surprises,” saidGautam Chhaochharia, head ofResearch at UBS India.

Just like a day earlier, overseasinvestors were strong buyers,while domestic institutionalinvestors (DIIs) were net sellerson Tuesday, the data provided bythe stock exchanges showed.

Foreign portfolio investors(FPIs) bought shares worth ~1,185crore, while DIIs sold sharesworth ~1,090 crore. On MondayFPIs bought shares worth ~1,734crore after pulling out ~8,500crore from domestic stocks in theprevious eight sessions.

Barring three, all Sensex con-stituents ended with losses.Banking and financial shareswere the biggest drag on the mar-ket — most of them declinedbetween 1 per cent and 3 per cent,after making stellar gains a dayearlier. Seventeen of the 19 sec-toral indices of the BSE declined,led by the auto index, which fell2.60 per cent.