What: Recent television ads for Malaysian Airlines, Nokia 8800, and Tata Safari

Why: They play on the senses; the music and the execution are fairly similar; and you don't know what they are selling till they eventually get down to it

Punchlines: Designed for the senses for Nokia. Sometimes, the most luxurious experience on earth... isn't on earth for Malaysian Airlines. And Reclaim your life for Safari.

Opinion: "If advertising has to portray experience, it has to exaggerate, play on the audiences' senses, and heighten the desire to own the brand," says Prasoon Joshi, National Creative Director, McCann Erickson

-Shailesh Dobhal

What's Cooking?

Who: J. Suresh, Managing Director, MTR Foods

Why: He's moving on. Suresh was signed on by MTR Foods' Sadananda Maiyya from HLL where he was a star in the beverages business

Achievements: A couple of 'namma MTR' snack bars

Parallels: Well, it is not quite like Vivek Paul quitting Wipro but the buzz says Suresh had differences with Chairman Maiyya

Opinion(s): "Suresh moved on because his three-year term ended... there were no differences," says Maiyya; "Our understanding was good... I only quit because I wanted to move on," says Suresh

-Rahul Sachitanand

A CRUEL JOKE
Niche channel Star One poses a threat to Sony and Zee.

For a laugh: Judges N.S. Sidhu (L) and Shekhar Suman

A three-month old weekly show featuring a contest between stand-up comics, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge has become the 24th most popular television programme in India with television rating points of 5.2 for the week ending August 20, 2005. If that's news that merits mention, it is because the other 24 programmes in the top 25 are shown on Star Plus. And so, Star One, on which the show appears, has done what Sony and Zee couldn't do. "The programme is an example of the reducing distance between mainstream and niche content," says Partha Sinha, Chief Strategy Officer of advertising agency Ambience Publicis. "Star One is within striking distance of becoming the #2 television channel in the country," gushes Ajay Vidyasagar, Senior Vice President (Marketing), Star India. The man is overstating the case-Star One's all-day channel share of 23 per cent trails Sony Entertainment Television's 46 per cent and Zee's 32 per cent and he isn't-in the past six weeks the channel has gained six percentage points while Zee has lost almost nine (Sony holds its own). That's no joke.

-Shailesh Dobhal

P-WATCH
A bird's eye view of what's hot and what's not on the government's policy radar.

Indian agri: It's changing

REFORMING AGRI-MARKETING

It's Indian agriculture's first brush with economic reforms. All states will amend their Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Acts by March 2006 to facilitate contract farming in the country. This will give companies like ITC, Godrej, Hindustan Lever and Pepsico, among others, greater control over the quality of agricultural commodities they buy, while at the same time guaranteeing better prices, assured offtake and, therefore, greater security for farmers. Says a senior agricultural ministry official: "The states will be given assistance for creating marketing infrastructure."

The only contentious issue, says Subir Gokarn, Chief Economist at CRISIL, is risk distribution in case of crop failure. That will depend on the fine print. But Sharad Pawar's bold move promises to transform India's farm sector and take economic reforms into the country's heartland.

-Ashish Gupta

WHITHER SMES?

The small and medium enterprises Development Bill 2005 was meant to eliminate Inspector Raj and expedite the easy flow of credit to the sector. But the Left parties called it "draconian" and demanded amendments making it mandatory for SMEs to provide employees provident fund, gratuity, bonus, etc., to workers. The Bill has now been sent to a group of ministers for further deliberations. Ministry officials declined to comment on the issue. The SMEs, meanwhile, are still waiting for relief.

-Ashish Gupta