Kaante & Saathiya: The Two Towers?

In its own absurd style bollywood celebrated Good Friday five days before Christmas. That was the day two much-awaited and equally hyped releases hit theatres across India. On the surface, there's little in common between Kaante, Sanjay Gupta's rehash of Quentin Tarantino's cult classic Reservoir Dogs, and Bobby Bedi's Saathiya, a rendition of Mani Ratnam's Tamil blockbuster Alaipayuthe, an urban romance revolving around a just-married couple-the first is estimated to have cost Rs 35 crore to make, the second, just around Rs 8 crore. Both, however, were Bollywood's great white hopes, films that were expected to revive the industry's on-the-wane fortune. For some time, it looked like they would. Kaante raked in Rs 1.39 crore in box-office takings in its first week in Mumbai; Saathiya did Rs 55 lakh. Then, the magic died. At the time this magazine went to press both films were in their fourth week, Kaante's takings had dropped to Rs 33 lakh in Mumbai, and Saathiya's to around Rs 35 lakh. Given the predominantly urban appeal of both offerings, their performance in Mumbai could well be the benchmark of how they do across the country. "Forget making money," says Komal Nahata, publisher of trade journal Film Information: "Kaante will find it difficult to recover its costs.'' Big budgets don't work. Nor do big stars, slick production values, or sensitive screenplays. So, what does?

-Abir Pal

ELEGY
Shunu's School
If HLL was a Hogwarts for Indian marketers, Shunu was its Albus Dumbledore.

Shunu Sen: Mentor to today's marketing whizzes

When you spend 35 years at a company that is preferred hunting ground for poachers on the look for CEOs and marketing heads, it is highly likely that your old boys network includes some of India Inc's best-known execs. Between 1960 and 1995, Shunu Sen, HLL's former marketing head who died on January 3, didn't just work with such a sampling, he tutored it. "His ready smile, easy access, deep insights into marketing, and ability to protect his wards endeared him to us," recollects Saurav Adhikari, President-BPO (North America), HCL Infosystems. A partial list of such 'wards' would include: R. Gopalakrishan, Vice Chairman, Indian Hotels and Tata Tea, Prakash Nedungadi, President, Madura Garments, Sanjiv Gupta, Deputy President, Coca-Cola India, Muktesh 'Mickey' Pant, Chief Marketing Officer, Reebok, Utpal Sengupta, CEO, Agro Tech Foods, Motorola's Amit Sharma , General Mills' Samir Behl and a clutch of senior managers at HLL, including incumbent chairman M.S. Banga and Director (Personal Products) Arun Adhikari.

Every one of Shunu's pupils could call him by his first name, approach him without fear, even challenge his thinking. In turn, Shunu would instill in each of them, a healthy respect for marketing principles, such as the benefits of consistent positioning. Lux, for instance, was always the "beauty bar of filmstars", a positioning platform that was so strong that leading actresses of the day appeared in commercials free of charge, at least as long as Shunu was in charge.

Disciples all: (clockwise from top right), Madura Garments' Prakash Nedungadi, HCL Infosystems' Saurav Adhikari, HLL's M.S. Banga, and Reebok's Muktesh Pant

"He taught us the ABCs of marketing," says Muktesh Pant, a one-time Shunu protégé. Pant, and several other managers still remember the Brand Management Forums Shunu organised in HLL's boardroom. "He wanted all managers to have a common brand vision, vocabulary...essentially be in the same boat," says HCL's Adhikari. Not surprisingly, Agro Tech's Sengupta claims Shunu was one of the main architects of the HLL approach to marketing and branding.

That didn't make Shunu a marketing square; he had a finely honed instinct of what would work, and what wouldn't. In the absence of this, Alyque Padamsee's Lalitaji commercial for Surf would have never gotten past HLL's Praetorian guard.

They may be selling shoes, colas, processed foods, or telecom or software services, but each of Shunu's students is out there somewhere, pushing the marketing envelope a little bit. That's the kind of legacy the man would have liked to leave behind. He certainly did.

-Shailesh Dobhal

HOO-HAH!
Losing The Thrill
The going gets tougher for Yahoo! India, with key executives leaving and online advertising slacking.

Yahoo India's Neville Taraporewala: Going downhill

Towards the end of January this year, yahoo's pointman in Australia, Darren Gocher, is expected to wing into India. His mission: to dispel the growing perception that Yahoo Web Services India is winding up. He'll have a tough job on hand, though. On December 14, 2002, Yahoo India's Country Manager Deepak Chandnani quit, followed by Arun Gupta, Head of Business Development, and a few others. Chandnani's departure puts the onus of Indian operations on Neville Taraporewala, Director (Sales), who joined seven months ago, and reports to Gocher. Taraporewala says things are just fine, although he refuses to part with any sales or profit figures. So who's right? Taraporewala or Yahoo India's sceptics?

BT learns that of Yahoo India's core businesses of commerce, content, and communication (a model that apes the parent's), only the communication bit is doing well. According to estimates, of its Rs 12 crore revenue last year, half came from online advertising. Given an overall marketsize of about Rs 50 crore, that's a significant share. The problem, however, is that online advertising took a hit last year and bigger players like Rediff and Sify got more share of this shrinking pie. Why? ''Yahoo's international flavour seems to be going against it in India,'' explains Partha Iyengar, Vice President (Research), Gartner.

The only area where things have clicked for the company is in internet to mobile services, where it has a range of clients, including new ones such as Airtel and RPG. In this segment, Yahoo India offers news, SMS, and downloads of ringtones and screensavers. According to estimates, its mobile services fetched about Rs 25 lakh a month last year. This may well grow, given that mobile subscriber base in India is clipping and at last count had crossed the magical 10-million mark. The question, however, is this: will the Indian market ever be big enough for the 600-pound gorilla of the internet?

-Dipayan Baishya

FOG-INDEX
The Cost Of Fog
Rs 39,78,00,000 in losses. That's how much the fog could have cost India Inc.

Poor visibility: A clear loss

And how did we arrive at that? Here's how: Indian Airlines, Jet and Sahara fly 40,000 passengers a day; 60 per cent of them are business travellers. Some 75 international flights take off and land in Delhi. Assuming a 70 per cent load factor for a capacity of 250 pax, and 60 per cent corporate traffic, the number of daily passengers works out to 7,875. The average delay in the first 13 business days of 2003 was two hours. Assuming an average salary of Rs 15 lakh a year, and a 60-hour workweek, we are talking about a daily wastage of 63,750 manhours. Multiply that by Rs 480, the average hourly pay, for 13 days, and you get Rs 39.78 crore in wasted wages. And we haven't even got to the missed deals.

-Suveen K. Sinha