The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Hrithik is Mumbai Indians ambassador

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Tuesday, Apr 15, 2008
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Hrithik is Mumbai Indians ambassador

Special Correspondent

Logo revamped, tie-up announced with Tashan
Hrithik to play lead in audio-visual campaign

Mumbai: Mumbai Indians announced a revamp of its logo designed around a Sudarshan Chakra and India flag, named cine star Hrithik Roshan as the Team Ambassador and lead its Fan Club ‘MI Paltan’, a tie-up with Yash Raj Film’s “Tashan” for cross-promotional purposes and the sale of tickets as its initial marketing campaign for the DLF-IPL Twenty20 competition.

Explanation

Most significantly, however, the Mumbai franchise explained why the Reliance Group logo is not featured in its promotional campaigns and that all its activities will henceforth be under the umbrella company ‘IndiaWin Sports’, thus dropping clear hints that it will may look beyond cricket to fulfil a social commitment.

Mr. R. Balachandran, Director, IndiaWin Sports and President & Chief Marketing Officer, Reliance Retail revealed at a press conference here on Monday that RIL group’s Rathipriya Trading Pvt. Ltd — the name of the company that successfully bid for the Mumbai Indians at $111.9 million for ten years — has been changed to IndiaWin Sports.

“It was done recently. Presently the focus is on IPL and cricket and the objective is to build a very strong foundation. IPL is for perpetuity.

“If there is a long term opportunity to engage in more sports we would look at it at the appropriate time,” said Mr. Balachandran.

Represents youth

Another Director of IndiaWin Sports, Kaushik Roy said that Hrithik Roshan was chosen as the Team Ambassador by Nita Ambani, wife of Mukesh Ambani, because he represents youth, energy and tenacity, and is driven by aspirations.

“We cannot forget the Reliance Group which began with business in textiles and is now into oil and gas. We are inspired by Reliance and hence we may look towards other sports.

“We are not using the Reliance image in the promotional activity because our focus is on Mumbai Indians and the company logo would be overwhelming for the partners.”

Print media campaign

Mumbai Indians, which has taken MasterCard and Adidas as its partners, revealed its print media campaign featuring Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Sanath Jayasuriya and Robin Uthappa and also a two-minute audio-visual campaign with Hrithik Roshan singing a marathi-hindi mix theme song, ‘Ala re ala’ (here we come), Duniya Hila Denge (Let’s rock the world).

When asked if Mumbai Indians is concerned with controversy surrounding the media coverage of the competition, Kaushik Roy said: “We cannot do anything, the IPL has dealt with road blocks in the past to our satisfaction. It’s up to the IPL to handle it.”

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