Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Your logo here Personalised calendars are a rage, but you have to be somebody to have it

Subi Samuel teamed up with a media house for his annual calendar. The Alchemy Calendar has a comic strip feel to it, with a 500 word story behind the emotions of each picture.

“Joy Gujral, the creative head of Marching Ants came up with the idea of a story line behind each picture,” explains Subi. The funky year book has one actor per month, with a story line woven around it, each of which had the stars inputs as well.

For example, Priyanka Chopra is dressed like a nymph while Preity Zinta has an inferno in the background with the caption, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta, Dia Mirza, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Shah Rukh Khan and Bipasha Basu feature in the other months.

From planning to printing, the calendar was wrapped up in a record two months but Subi is honest enough to say, “Sharing a personal rapport with all of them definitely helped.”

Subi has also shot the Think Pink Breast Awareness Calendar. The ‘Think Pink’ calendar is part of the Breast Cancer awareness initiative. Male models Arjun Rampal, Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham are part of this awareness drive to show that even men are prone to breast cancer. Of the two he says the Think Pink Calendar was easier to shoot, “because they were all portraits. The Alchemy Calendar was more difficult to shoot.”

But either ways, he says he is happy, even if the two compete with each other for desk space. “Because they’re both shot by me.”

Gold’s gym has also launched a celebrity calendar, promoting health and fitness. Soha Ali Khan and Dino Morea are some of the celebs who feature on this calendar, are shown exercising.

The Elite calendar features 12 of their models. Pankhuri Singh, of Elite Model Management says the idea of the calendar was to focus on the beauty of the girls. “Each shot has been done the Japanese way.” While Daboo Ratnani’s celebrity calendar for 2008 does away with women and solely focuses on the men of the glamour world with an all-male calendar. Manisha Ratnani says, “Women are highlighted and made to look glamourous all the time, sometimes giving the men less scope. This calendar features all of Daboo’s favourite stars.”

And let’s not forget the Indian version of the Pirelli calendar- the Kingfisher one shot by Atul Kasbekar that first brought recognition to celebrity calendars. But companies like Airtel and ICICI have come up with a different way to ensure brand visibility and at the same time provide personalised calendars to clients.

Sam E. COO Airtel, A.P circle explains, “We keep doing personalised events for our customers, focussing on things that people don’t do for themselves.” So the company has handed out calendars with the name of the customer designed onto the art work on each page.

The calendars have a warning or announcement, with the client’s name in place of the VVIPs name, for example, a cloud formation or a scrolling marquee with the name ‘Vijaya Mehra.’

At a recent fun fair across the state, the company invited customers with their families and pictures shot at the event were mounted onto calendars and given to the clients.

But whichever one you fancy, there’s a catch here. All of them are ‘not for sale,’ and are limited edition calendars, something you can get your hands on only if you hobnob with the who’s who.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail