Quintessential Theory

Quiz: Howzzat!!! @ Amaze 07

Host: IIPM, Chennai

QM: Sylvian Patrick

Date: 07 March 2007

Prizes: I Prize- Rs 20,000; II Prize- Rs 10,000

Winners: ICFAI Business School, Bangalore

The Brand Equity Quiz Wagon rolls out this year from Ahmedabad on March 9, 2007. With an addition of Kochi and Indore, BEQ is now the first corporate business quiz spanning 10 cities.

The Schedule for the quiz is as follows

Regional Finals

Mar 9, 2007 - Ahmedabad- Mudra
Mar 10, 2007 - Pune- Savoir Faire
Mar 13, 2007 - Kolkata- TCS
Mar 15, 2007 - Delhi- NTPC
Mar 20, 2007 - Bangalore- Ray & Keshavan
Mar 21, 2007 - Chennai- Sanmar Group
Mar 22, 2007 - Hyderabad- Vizag Steel
Mar 26, 2007 - Kochi- Manorama
Mar 29, 2007 - Mumbai- Deutsche Bank
Mar 31, 2007 -Indore

National Final

Apr 29, 2007 - Mumbai

For more details, visit-http://beq.economictimes.indiatimes.com/

The Quiz will be hosted by Derek O Brien and the content will be by Team DobAnda

TATA Crucible Campus 2007

Bangalore Edition

25 February 2007

QM: Giri ‘Pickbrain’

1) Which brand of shirts gets its name from the fact that the first batch after production was over dyed?

Ans: Colorplus

2) Which media group is using the tagline- ‘Just Imagine’ for its new campaign?

Ans: Star

3) To honor whom did United India Insurance name one of its policies as Cinemukta Policy?

Ans: Subash Ghai

4) Transelektra Domestic Products created a brand in 1984, which has 62 % market share. Which brand?

Ans: Good Knight

5) Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner is the CEO of which software application?

Ans: Opera

6) Who is the main sponsor of Zimbabwe cricket team?

Ans: Old Mutual

7) What is the national airline of UAE?

Ans: Etihad Airlines

Expand ABB

Ans: Asea Brown and Baveri

9) Zanusi, Eureka and Frigidair are/were brands from which home-appliance company?

Ans: Electrolux

10) Which company would you associate Ingvar Kamprad with?

Ans: IKEA

11) Founded as a drug for athlete’s foot and sore feet, it is now a big brand (especially during summers). Which one?

Ans: Nycil

12) ‘Proudly South African heroes’ is a branding exercise by which organization/company/brand?

Ans: South African Cricket Board

13) The first automobile out of their factory on 14 April 1927 was called OV-4. Which company?

Ans: Volvo

14) ‘Protects whats good’ is the way this company positions itself. Which food business related company?

Ans: Tetrapak

15) With which company would you associate the name Jack Cohen?

Ans: Tesco

For review and final’s questions, click here

Domain Expertise Inquisition

SIBM Transcend

23 February 2007

QM: Giri ‘Pickbrain’

1) Arvind mills, one of the foremost producers of denim & jeans- the world is the flagship company of which group?

Ans: Lalbhai Group

2) Which major tyre maker is also famous for its Red & Green travel guides?

Ans: Michelin Tyres

3) Which company gets its name from portions of the words “communication” and broadcast” ?

Ans: ComCast

4) Fredrich Wilhelm August Frobel creating the first of a type ‘education institution’?

Ans: Kindergarten

5) Globosports, a sports management company run by whom,has signed leading pace bowler Zaheer Khan?

Ans: Mahesh Bhupati

6) Pramod Mittal is currently the owner of which premier Bulgarian football club?

Ans: CSKA Sofia

7) The first foreign exchange transaction in euro was between ABN-AMRO and which other bank?

Ans: SBI

Which company launched a new range of premium car care products called motomax?

Ans: Pidilite

9) Pilani investments & industries corporation ltd., is the investment arm of which Indian corporate house?

Ans: AV Birla Group

10) Which company has been given the show cause notice for “its tough being a west Indian in India”, ad campaign?

Ans: Nimbus (Neo Sports)

11) Which latin term is used to refer to duties that are levied on commodities/products as a certain percentage of their price, these are different from specific excise duties that are levied on products?

Ans: Ad-valorem

12) Bernard Arnault is the chairman & CEO of which French clothing retailer?

Ans: Christian Dior

13) Who tells you there is “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” ?

Ans: C.K Prahalad

14) Renault has tied with Mahindra & Mahindra in India to release which car?

Ans: Logan

15) What was the profession of the seven dwarfs in Snow White?

Ans: Miners

16) If Apple=iPod, then Microsoft=?

Ans: Zune

17) If you are in the business of importing & exporting Beverlly Hills,Cats head,English Beauty, Lord Nelson etc. what are you doing business in?

Ans: Apples

1 Dialpad communications Inc,Kelkoo SA, and Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd. Are all subsidiaries of which company?

Ans: Yahoo

19) Magicbricks.com is a property portal launched by which company?

Ans: Times Group

20) Which organization primary ad slogan reads “the future for britain”?

Ans: Labour Party

21) Which company owns picasa?

Ans: Google

22) Sachin Tendulkar has recently sold his personal rights to the newly formed marketing branch of Saatchi & Saatchi.Name it?

Ans: Iconix

23) Identify this Swedish brand that was founded in 1967 by Jones and Robert af Jochninck?

Ans: Oriflame

24) For which event in India between 22 feb & 25 feb would international brands such as Azimuts,Beneteau,Ferretti and Funseeker be seen in action?

Ans: Boats/ Yachts for the race in Mumbai

25) Sir Joseph Lister gave the world which brand?

Ans: Listerine

For details on winners and final questions, click here

Quiz: Domain Expertise- A Business Quiz

Host: SIBM, Pune

QM: Giri ‘Pickbrain’

Date: 23 February 2007

Prizes: I Prize- Rs 30,000; II Prize- Rs 15,000

Winners: I-KJ Somaiya, Mumbai, II- IMT, Ghaziabad

Details: http://www.sibmtranscend.com/

Quiz for Quizkrieg

1) If its Dacia for Romania, Somaca for Morocco, RDB for Brazil, Avtoframos for Russia, Sofasa for Columbia, Saipa & Iran Khodro for Iran, who (which company) is it for India?

Ans: M&M (Mahindra). These are the companies that are partnering Renault for the production of the Logan car in their respective countries

2) The company was started way back in 1971 with a paid up capital of Rs 50 lakh. The company then named Maschinefabric Polygraph (India) had a technical collaboration with Veb Polygraph, Germany. However the collaboration came to an end in 1991 post the unification of Germany. The company was re-christened to its present name in 1992. It was named after the founder’s father Manubhai Shah who came to Mumbai from a small village near Baroda in 1918-19 and set up a retail business of stoves, batteries and petromaxes. How do we know this company today?

Ans: Manugraph (India)- Leader in the newspaper printing machinery market

3) When Vahid Berenjian, a swede of Persian descent met Akbar Khwaja in Bangalore in 1994, a new brand was born. After a successful venture in India, the brand will make its first foreign foray in Kuwait in February 2007 and Bangladesh in June 2007. Which brand?

Ans: U.S Pizza

4) The now Rs 700 crore group was born in the bylanes of Kolkata in 1974 when two young men R.S Agarwal and R.S Goenka chucked their jobs with the Birlas to turn entrepreneurs with an initial capital of Rs 20,000. Which group?

Ans: Emami

5) In the year 1932, Theodore Baumritter and Nathan Ancell had a dream to create high quality Colonial Style furniture. They named their first line of products after a legendary Revolutionary War hero, which became the brand name. What brand?

Ans: Ethan Allen

Suggestions, feedback and comments to: rohit.s.nair@gmail.com

Tata Crucible 2007- Campus Edition
Chennai Round
9^th February 2007

QM: Giri Pickbrain

The Tata Crucible quiz kick started the third edition of the campus crucible with much fanfare from the student community. The chennai round saw approximately 150 teams fighting to secure the first national final’s spot.

The prelim was a relative easy affair with around 14 dry questions and 6 visual/audio questions.

After the wild card round, the top 8 on stage were:

1) IIT-DOMS

2) IIPM

3) College of Engineering, Guindy

4) Anna University

5) IIT-DOMS

6) Thiagaraja College of Engineering, Madurai

7) Great Lakes Institute of Management

BIM, Trichy

After three rounds of quizzing, which included a dry round, a crossword round and a formula round, the top 4 teams remained on stage.

The top four were:

1) IIPM- Thiagarajan and Mrinal

2) CEG- Siddharth and Raghavendra

3) TCE- Ramsaravanan and Shankarnarayan

4) GLIM- Ashish and Sachin

This stage consisted of 5 rounds- a visual round, tata round, connect round, the clueless round and the rapid fire round.

The finish was very close with only 5 points separating TCE and CEG.

So the final standings read:

1) College of Enginering, Guindy

2) Thiagaraja College of Engineering, Madurai

That’s all from me…

Till the Bangalore edition..

Cheers

Rohit

Tata Crucible 2007- Campus Edition

Chennai Round

9^th February 2007

QM: Giri Pickbrain

1) How do we know ‘The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited’?

Ans: ANZ Bank

2) Which stock exchange in the world is referred to as ASX?

Ans: Australian Stock Exchange

3) Which company did Henrry Brayan. Dr J Budd, Harmon Cable, Will McGonaggle and John Dwan start on the North Shore of Lake Superior at 2 Harbors, Minnesota in 1902?

Ans: 3M

4) Which famous TV or radio network in the US is referred to as the Alphabet Network?

Ans: ABC Network

5) Who acquired Macromedia in Dec 2005?

Ans: Adobe

6) High Performance. Delivered is whose promise?

Ans: Accenture

7) Front Row, Sports Grill, American Bar are all brands owned by which company?

Ans: TGIF

Launched in 1958 by Bank of America as the white, blue and gold revolving credit. It was known as Bank Americard. How do we know it today?

Ans: VISA

9) Whose famous ad slogan was- “ The Milk Chocolate melts in your mouth. Not in your hands “

Ans: M&M

10) Who is the shirt sponsor of Manchester United?

Ans: AIG

11) Whose product is Minute Maid- a fruit punch?

Ans: Coca Cola

12) John Jacob and Henry founded which optics company in 1853?

Ans: Bausch & Lomb

13) Get Gorgeous, On the Run, Freedom Express aand Launchpad are programmes on which channel?

Ans: Channel V

14) Who produced the movie ‘Guru’?

Ans: Madras Talkies

Sharpshooters 2007

SIES, Navi Mumbai

27^th January 2007

QM: Guru Rao

The busy (26^th-28^th) Mumbai quizzing Weekend saw SIES conduct Sharpshooters 2007- the sixth edition of one of Mumbai’s most famous quizzes.

Unfortunately, the quiz was delayed by over two hours due to the dignitaries (read Ministers) arriving at their own sweet time.

The prelim was a 30 question affair and had very good content. The visual ads and videos were also very well researched.

The final six were on expected lines with the whole of India flying down to Mumbai for the quiz

The six finalists were

1) Amit Pandeya (Questa, Mumbai) + Rohan Khanna (Accenture, Delhi)

2) Mitesh Agarwal (Sun Microsystems, Bangalore) + Vishwajeet (Sun Microsystems, Mumbai)

3) Anish Raju (Cambridge Solutions, Chennai) + Gunaseelan (OnMobile, Bangalore)

4) Dhananjay Shettigar (Freelance) + Rohit Nair (UVCE, Bangalore)

5) Ajay Kasargod (WYSE Tech, Bangalore) + Prasad Shetty ( Kotak, Bangalore)

6) Arvindh (UTI, Mumbai) + Srini (Citibank, Chennai)

The quiz was a very long one but a good one for that. Excepting a few arbit questions, the quiz was very well researched and had really good quality…

The quiz was tied by Rohan/Amit and Prasad/Ajay, who decided to share the top two places rather than delay everyone further… The Sun Microsystems team came third….

The only drawback of the quiz being the lack of punctuality. The quiz after its prize distribution etc finished only at 2330hrs. This was a major cause of trouble especially considering the fact that the venue was in Navi Mumbai .

I hope the organizers take note of this and plan the quiz more efficiently

For the complete list of prelims questions, visit: http://rohitnair.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/sharpshooters-2007-prelims/

Till Next time

Cheers

Rohit

Sharpshooters 2007

SIES, Navi Mumbai

27^th January 2007

QM: Guru Rao

Mansukhbhai Mahadevbhai Kothari was sitting outside a small shop, tired after a hard day of cycling and hawking his home made goods. He noticed that some customers at the shop were getting impatient with the time taken to get their favourite item. This brand was thus born in 1973. Which brand?

A: Pan Parag

This brand was invented by Alexander Liepa of Montgomery, Ohio for the US Army. It was introduced across the USA in 1973. It is especially known for its packaging (invented by Fred Baur). In 2006, it released a unique product wherein the brand had food-coloring printed on them with either trivia questions or jokes in red or blue ink. Which brand?

A: Pringles

This company is owned by John and Robert Kirby and Graham Burke. The company takes its name from a shopping strip called “Croydon ___” in Melbourne. Which company?

A: Village Roadshow Pictures. The shopping strip was called Croydon Village.

This personality is launching incense sticks that have been christened ‘Karyasiddhi Grah Dhoop’. The ‘spiritually powered’ incense sticks are recommended for prosperity through planetary appeasement. Whom are we talking about?

A: Ekta Kapoor

This company was granted licenses to offer fixed line, cellular and ILD licenses in Mauritius in 2004. With the launch of nationwide mobile services called Mokoze, it has completed a full portfolio of telecoms services in Mauritius, including local and international fixed line voice telephony. Name the company.

A: MTNL

“Meet Or Delete” a social networking site is operated by HP along with which other media major?

A: MTV

With which company would you associate - Trumpasaurus, swoop, cruiter, skeeter, nettie, thwacker, Al-ert, Technopillar ?

A: Monster.com

On August 15^th 2006, Harley Davidson had its NYSE ticker symbol changed. What did it change to?

A: HOG

Jonty Rhodes joined this company after his retirement from international cricket. He is currently the head of sponsorship there. Which company?

A: Standard Bank

Sky Television plc a four-channel television service (Sky Channel, Eurosport, Sky Movies and Sky News.) launched by Rupert Murdoch’s News International on February 5, 1989 is credited with the commercial launch of what?

A: DTH

The Wall Street Journal has coined a term which means public confession as a form of therapy. What’s the term called?

A: Oprahfication

IF LIBOR is London Inter Bank Offer Rate what is SHIBOR ?

A: Shanghai Inter Bank Offer Rate

“Nano City” on the outskirts of Chandigarh is an initiative by HSIIDC and which eminent business icon?

A: Sabeer Bhatia

Headed by Naguib Sawiris, it operates under various brand names such as Djezzy, IraQna & Sheba in Algeria, Iraq & Bangaldesh markets repsectively. The company’s participation in India is considered to be a threat to national security by defence Mr Pranab Mukherjee due to its involvement in the Pakistan. Name it.

A: Orascom

The Financial Times turned 100 years old on 4^th Jan 1993. How did it celebrate this occasion?

A: It was printed on white paper to celebrate 100 years “in the pink”.

This personality is a civic activist, especially with respect to municipal administration in Bangalore. An art collector, this person has also authored ‘Ale and Arty,’ a coffee table book about brewing beer illustrated by paintings of some of India’s renowned artists. Famous brewing families and beer firms are the subject of the book. Who?

A: Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

Which company suspended its sponsorship of the show ‘Big Brother’ as it thought Channel 4 had not taken sufficient action in response to the alleged racism in the show?

A: Carphone Warehouse

ICH LIEBE ES, C’EST TOUT CE QUE J’AIME, ISTE BUNU SEVIYORUM, LOVE KO’TO. How do we know it in English?

A: I’m Loving it.

This publication was founded by Master Sunder Singh Lyallpuri, founder-father of the Akali Movement. The opening ceremony was performed by Mahatma Gandhi on September 15, 1924. It has been edited at times by people like Devdas Gandhi (the son of Mahatma Gandhi) and Khushwant Singh. Other sister publications are Nandan (Monthly children’s magazine) and Kadambani (Monthly literary magazine). What?

A: Hindustan Times.

He was born in 1962 in a hamlet called Umreth in western India. In 1977 he worked with Shyam Benegal as a spot boy. He was a CA by 1984. Apart from a brief flirtation with journalism and a long-time affair with writing, he also participated in politics. His favorite slogan, “roti, kapada, makan, bijli and bandwidth” epitomized the needs of the emerging 21st century Indian. Who?

A: Dewang Mehta

Launched on Feb 16, 2006, it is India’s first white label credit card. It does not carry on its face the brand of the issuer, as against a co-branded credit card which bears the logos of both the alliance partners. Name the card.

A: Tata Credit Card.

The original name was Mahindra’s ____ General Purpose Epoxy Compound. What brand?

A: M-Seal

I-Ven Realty Ltd, a joint venture company formed by Oberoi Constructions and ICICI Venture Funds has recently bought a plot in Worli (Mumbai)for Rs108 crore from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and plans to develop the same into India’s tallest residential building of 65 storeys with each floor having its personal swimming pool and gymnasium. What is so unique about this project?

A: Sale By Invitation

Toptable is the largest online restaurant booker in Europe. It provides bookings for Time Out, British Airways, The Times Online and Visit London. It is an online platform for restaurant owners to advertise their venues. Diners can read and compare information about restaurants before their table booking online. It was founded by entrepreneur Karen Hanton in 2000 along with another famous name. Who?

A: Sir Alex Ferguson

In November 2006, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to change U.S. banknotes. What was the reason cited for this change?

A: He suggested this change to make it easier for blind and visually impaired people to determine their denominations.

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‘Tata Crucible - The Business Quiz’ seeks to bring together sharpest young minds in India to take on the heat of the toughest business quiz in India. Youth is a key audience cluster which the Tata Group is focusing its communication at and Tata Crucible is one of the key initiatives towards this engagement.

Schedule/ Winners:

9th Feb- Siddharth and Raghavendra, College of Engineering Guindy

10th Feb- Arjun Siva and Dr. Vikram, IMT Ghaziabad

16th Feb- Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (Rohit Jain & Nikhil Narayan)

17th Feb- KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies (Sandeep Rajpurohit & Shameer B)

18th Feb- Institute of Management , Nirma University (Mitesh Shah and Vivek Rao)

20th Feb- Inst of Engineering and Management (IEM) Kolkata (Sumanthra Mukherjee & Soumya Maitra)

22nd Feb-IBS (Sriram & Uday)

25th Feb- CMS (Siddharth Bhutoria & Anant Singhania)

National Winners: Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (Pune)

Thats all from me….

For reviews and questions from the Tata Crucible series, please log on to Quizkrieg

Till my next post

Have fun.. Happy Quizzing!

Cheers

Rohit

Sun Microsystems IIT-B Business Quiz

IIT-Powai

28 Jan 2007

QM: Mitesh Agarwal

The answer to the last prelim question seemed to be the most befitting way to describe the entire quizzing experience at the Sun Microsystems-IIT Bombay Business Quiz- ‘Content is King’

With a line-up that had all the heavyweights of Indian Quizzing, the stage seemed to be set for a grand final

After a 40-question prelim, the QM rightly felt that the quiz should accommodate more than 6 teams and hence allowed Chennai stalwarts Anish and Guna to battle in the final although they just missed out as the seventh team. This was made possible as the entire quiz was on infinite bounds.

The seven teams on stage were:

1) Anish Raju (Cambridge Solutions, Chennai) + Gunaseelan (OnMobile, Bangalore)

2) Rajiv Rai (Deutsche Bank, Mumbai) + Vishwajeet (Sun Microsystems, Mumbai)

3) Alagarswamy and Ameya (ICICI)

4) Arvindh (UTI, Mumbai) + Srini (Citibank, Chennai)

5) Ajay Kasargod (WYSE Tech, Bangalore) + Prasad Shetty ( Kotak, Bangalore)

6) Dhananjay Shettigar (Freelance) + Rohit Nair (UVCE, Bangalore)

7) Amit Pandeya (Questa, Mumbai) + Rohan Khanna (Accenture, Delhi)

All the finalists (excluding yours truly) were Tata Crucible, Brand Equity or BT-Acumen champions, which undoubtedly made the final line-up and the final a treat to watch

At the end of a long quiz, which included a 36 question exhaustive long connect, Srini and Arvindh won comprehensively leaving the other teams quite a distance behind.

The quiz was definitely a learning experience [how much exists more than brand history ;)], I definitely hope Mitesh does more quizzes, especially in Bangalore.

The set of prelims questions can be obtained here

That’s all for now

Till next time

Cheers

Rohit

Sun Microsystems IIT-B Business Quiz

IIT-Powai

28 Jan 2007

QM: Mitesh Agarwal

The prelims consisted of 40 questions- a mixture of dry, audio, visuals, videos and connects.
Some of those questions can be found below.

* He was born Wu Bai-fu in Taiwan but changed his name when he migrated to Japan. Ironically, his product was considered a luxury item when it was introduced since Japanese grocery stores always sold fresh Udon & Soba varieties at one-sixth the cost of his new concept. Who & What did he introduce?

Ans: Mamufoku Ando & Ramen Noodles

* The Times Group (Bennet, Coleman) has little success in ventures outside its core business. Some examples being Times Guaranty, Times Bank, Timesofmoney.com, Timesmaitri.com etc. A few decades ago they sold tea under a brand name. The ads featured “luminaries” like Behram Contractor (Busy Bee) & Khushwant Singh amongst others. What brand name?

Ans: Editor’s Choice

* This slang (word) is almost certainly and logically derived from the slang ‘doss-house’, meaning a very cheap hostel or room. In Elizabethan England ‘doss’ was a straw bed, (derived from ‘dossel’ meaning bundle of straw)Which commonly used slang?

Ans: DOSH

* The Prudential Insurance Co of America stopped using its most popular slogan in the mid 1980s, due to jokes which related to the death of Rock Hudson from AIDS. What slogan?

Ans: Get a Piece of the Rock

* Legend has it that the Maharaja of Mysore travelled by a special train that stopped at _____ station & he had been served _____ with chutney. What popular South Indian food item are we talking about?

Ans: Maddur Vada

* This trend was started by Copacabana Restaurants. In India Saravana Bhavan (Chennai) & Café Masala (Delhi) introduced it. What?

Ans: Pay By weight

* It was established in 1958 with assistance from UNESCO and with funds contributed by the Soviet Union. Its temporary home in 1958 was at the Silk and Art Silk Mills Research Association (SASMIRA) building in Worli. Name it.

Ans: IIT Bombay

* In the 1970s, this firm did a research for HLL & the insight they got was that the Indian housewife spent her entire time cooking or managing the house except the 10 mins that she spends taking a bath. They then commissioned what she day dreamed from dawn to dusk. What resulted?

Ans: Girl in LIRIL WATERFALL

* The company CKX has the following major assets and holdings:

Global Rights - Elvis Presley - the rights to the name, image and likeness of Elvis Presley, and the operations of Graceland* Majority Global Rights - Muhammad Ali - an 80% interest in the name, likeness, trademarks, and licensing agreements of Muhammad Ali including Ali’s “Greatest Of All Time” (or G.O.A.T.) slogan•19 Entertainment - acquired from Simon Fuller in 2005 for $200 million. 19 owns, among other things, a share of the rights to the Idol series, including Pop Idol in Great Britain, American Idol in the United States, and numerous other international versions.f X is Robert F.X. Sillerman ,
What does CK stand for?

Ans: Content is King