Vizag Steel wins Brand Equity Quiz Hyderabad round

HYDERABAD: On Thursday evening, all traffic in Hyderabad was flowing in one direction — the Taj Deccan Lawns, host to the regional round of the Brand Equity Quiz 2007, presented by Idea. With most of the 36 teams that took part coming from the IT industry, winners Vizag Steel — who won the Hyderabad round last year as well — could in some senses be considered outsiders.

Vizag Steel, which had two teams on stage, topped the preliminary round, leaving the other finalists (Satyam, DE Shaw, JDA Software, Infosys) way behind, but as the on-stage round commenced, all the teams put up a good performance. With no single team dominating, Infosys was in the lead right up till the last round — which is when Vizag Steel confirmed their flights to the national finals in Mumbai. The winners walked away with prizes worth Rs 1,10,000 from local and national sponsors, presented by Mr Subbaram Iyer, CEO, AP circle, Idea Cellular, while the runners-up had to make do with prizes worth Rs 43,000.

J Rahul and AGK Murthy of Vizag Steel were quite thrilled about getting a second chance to contest in the national finals of the Brand Equity quiz. “This time we were quite comfortable and not tense like last year,” said the winners. Newspapers, internet, family, office colleagues and friends have all played an important role in their success, say Murthy and Rahul. “An iota of luck along with hard work will ensure a different result in the finals this time,” thinks Murthy.

Here’s a sample of their road to the finals — answering questions such as ‘Which snack did Haldiram export 10,000 kgs of in 2005 — Pani Puri’, ‘What is common to Yuvraj, Arjun, Sarpanch and Bhoomiputra — they are tractors’, ‘In 2006, which country did Wal-Mart allow its staff to set up a union in — China’, ‘Whom did Deepti Salgaocar assist in writing the book ‘The Man I Knew’ — Kokilaben Ambani’. Though the stakes for the participants were high, as always at the Brand Equity Quiz, the audience gets a chance to play too, with prizes worth Rs 38,000 up for grabs. Deloitte US Firms was the local presenting sponsor for Hyderabad, with local prize sponsors Spencers, Mebaz Corporate, 3rd i, Mullberry, 10 Downing Street, Hidesign and TMC. Taj Deccan was the hospitality partner for Hyderabad.

From Hyderabad, the quiz moves to God’s own country — Kerala, Kochi on March 26, Mumbai on March 29 and the regional rounds wind up in Indore on March 31. The finalists at the regional rounds will fight for ultimate glory in the finals to be held in Mumbai.

The Brand Equity Quiz 2007 is presented by Idea, and the grand prize sponsor is Ford Ikon. The airline sponsor is Kingfisher Airlines and the event is powered by Indiatimes.com. Innovation partner for the Brand Equity Quiz 2007 is Wipro.

The associate partners are Times Now and Radio Mirchi and the official time partner is Pierre Cardin. Retail partner is Inox while the national prize sponsors are Kaya Skin Clinic, Provogue, Gitanjali, Lee, Vedic Village Spa & Resorts, Fujifilm finepix digital cameras, Digjam and Antivirus Quick Heal. The beverage sponsor for the quiz is Kingfisher.