Category — Media & Entertainment

Long before the success of  Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman became a legend in India for his spellbinding musical scores. Today he is recognized worldwide for his prowess and his work appears in Western movies; Rahman also wrote the music for the Commonwealth Games song in 2010.

AR Rahman (right) at the Hollywood Bowl

He was in my town on Sunday. Here is the local paper said of his performance.

Winner of two 2009 Academy Awards (best score and song) for “Slumdog Millionaire,” Rahman is a master of epic themes embellished with artful textures and details. The Bowl selections ranged from Rahman’s first film score, “Roja” (The Rose),  in 1992 to the sci-fi fantasy “Endhiran” in 2010.  Music for  “The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey” (2005) demonstrated one Rahman extreme — maximum power and sweep –but  the soulful delicacy of “Chan Chan” (from “Water,” also 2005) sounded no less impressive.

For the first time since the Indian economy liberalized in 1991, India won the World Cup in cricket, the game that is India’s passion. By beating Sri Lanka in a thrilling finish at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, India won the trophy in a moment of joy for the entire country on Saturday. People of Indian origin worldwide celebrated as one. Politicians at every level from President Pratibha Patel to Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi were seen celebrating as were Bollywood celebrities from actor Amitabh Bachchan to singer Lata Mangeshkar.

The money in cricket has changed dramatically since 1983, the last time India won the championship, then held at the Lord’s field in the United Kingdom. According to the Hindustan Times, “In 1983 out of the total prize money of about Rs 46 lakh (£66,200), captain Kapil Dev’s team pocketed Rs 14 lakh (£20,000). On Saturday, current captain MS Dhoni’s team got a payment 60 times larger, of about Rs 8.5 crore ($1.9 million). The tournament’s total prize money was Rs 27 crore ($6 million).”

But that is not all. India’s central government is actively considering a proposal by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to waive all income tax on direct and indirect winnings from the trophy. A retinue of additional monetary and non-monetary awards await the players, the team, the coach, the organizers and more, see story here.

The real money for the stars of the game is in advertising endorsements. For example Captain Dhoni earns $1.5 million per year per endorsement and currently endorses almost 20 brands including Sony, Pepsi, Reebok and Big Bazaar. His price is expected to double next week.

“With the World Cup win, there is a huge emotional connect at this moment with cricket,” says Subhinder Singh Prem, managing director, Reebok India, the official sponsor of the World Cup according to  the Daily Mint. “As a sports brand, we definitely want to ride the wave, do interesting things and engage with consumers.” Rebook India’s latest campaign for ZigTech shoes features Indian cricketers Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh.

Of course what is driving this money is large television audiences. An incredible  Sixty-four per cent of cable and satellite homes in India were watching the final game of Word Cup Cricket. The  game was on for an average of four hours in every household. Ratings peaked towards the end of the match when India held the World Cup. The match got 13.7 television rating points (TVRs), the highest for any event so far. When the winning moment arrived, the ratings peaked, touching a massive 21.44.

Takeaway: Cricket’s impact on India exceeds sports and advertising and pervades every aspect of urban life in India.

Footnote: While the World Cup is over and teams from 14 countries have returned home, Indians a re only taking one week off from cricket. The Indian Premier League which pits local professional teams against one another begins April 8. Bring out the cheerleaders!

India’s dominance in IT outsourcing and its rise in the call center business is often linked to the fact that India offered a large low-cost English speaking population and that this was India’s big advantage over China.  The truth is more complex and nuanced than that, but I will reserve that to a later post.  Today,  some Indians worry that China’s push to teach English to hundreds of millions of its citizens may threaten India’s position.

I have tremendous respect for the Chinese miracle and the success of Chinese companies and entrepreneurs in many fields. But  it will be  while before English speaking Chinese are a serious concerns to the Wipros and TCSes (and to the Indian heads of IBM and Accenture). English is embedded in Indian culture, society and life in a ground up organic way that Chinese leaders can order from the top in Beijing.

Here is an excerpt from a  New York Times article that substantiates what I am saying, read the rest by clicking here.

Almost all advertising billboards in India are in English. There is not a single well-paying job in the country that does not require a good understanding of the language. Higher education here is conducted entirely in English. When Hindustan Pencils makes cheap pencils, which its sells to rural children for a rupee apiece (about 2 cents), the company prints the brand name, “Jobber,” in English. “A villager has more respect for a brand that is written in English,” said Dhruman Sanghvi, a company director.

In an interesting article on Mashable, Mike Laurie lists the ways social networking has changed us. The recent events in Egypt have also reinforced this clear message: social networking is here to stay and will continue to change the way we interact on a personal and professional level.

How does social networking fare in Asia, and in India in particular? A study by Comscore (excluding China) shows that over 50% of the total online population in the Asia-Pacific region (240.3 million) visited a social networking site in Feb 2010. And while you may think of India as leading the pack, it was the Philippines that headed the fray, followed by Australia and Indonesia.

Indians are master networkers and have been so for centuries, but their embrace  of  online techniques has been relatively modest so far. The many local networking sites that have sprung up are already a testimonial to the local appetite.  Some of the popular India-based social networks include bigadda, ibibo, fropper, desimartini and rediff social.

On an international level, Google’s Orkut and Facebook are competing in India.  While for a long while, Orkut seemed to have gained the upper hand, recent Alexa listings show that Facebook is the fourth most visited site in India after Google.co.in, Google.com and Yahoo. Where will it go from here? As more and more mobile phone companies enter the market with the latest offerings, I believe social networking in India will grow stronger, as businesses continue to experiment with how networking sites can expand their offerings on a more localized level.

Indian historian Ramachandra Guha compares  the sport of cricket in India to soccer (football) in Brazil.  India’s  love affair is evident to even the casual American visitor; tt’s a game that’s enjoyed equally well on the streets of any city corner, as it is on the greens of cricket clubs that dot the city. I tell my American clients to imagine professional and college baseball/football/basketbal/hockey combined  in comparing the role of cricket in India to their own experience.

Youth playing cricket on Indian streets

Much has been written  on the political, social and even the economic bearing the game has on the country. So I can understand the excitement PepsiCo’s Gatorade Pacers’ announcement has generated. Gatorade Pacers is a program that helps identify and prepare five  “fast bowlers”  for the Indian Cricket team. (bowlers are the rough equivalent of baseball pitchers for my American readers, bowlers whose hallmark is speed of throw are called pacers, as distinct from “spinners” that can bowl curve balls or even “googlies”).  Those selected  travel to Dubai to train at the ICC Cricket Academy in a bid to outshine all others in the Gatorade Sweat Test.

The Gatorade Sweat Test claims  scientific backing; the program works with athletes to understand and develop a better hydration system, which in turn generates higher performance levels. Fans of the Gatorade Sweat Test include Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Brett Lee and Usain Bolt.

The five men selected – Barinder Singh, Abdul Baseer Mohammed, Gurudas Shenoy, Sukhvir Singh and Maninder Singh will spend 7 days in training under resident coaches Mudassar Nazar and Dayle Hadlee before practicing with teams from the Netherlands, Kenya, Ireland and Canada. The Gatorade Pacers program has been a smart move on the part of PepsiCo. Launched in 2007 and exclusive to India, the program has touched the nation where it matters most – on an emotional front. It has also provided over 20,000 aspirants the chance to become part of a very exclusive and much loved club.

PepsiCo entered the India in 1989 and has grown quite successful , with international brands including  Pepsi, Lay’s, Tropicana, Gatorade and Quaker, as well as  India-only  brands lsuch as  Nimbooz (a lemon drink)  and Kurkure (spicy fried and roasted snacks) .  Incidentally,  Pepsi India’s first CEO was my friend Micky Pant, who is mentioned in my book “Doing Business in 21st Century India” for his observations relating to Hindustan Lever.