Through the said on-ground promotion, winners will get to register for the marathon. In its first year, the race attracted 4,000 entries for the half marathon, which increased to around 8,000 in the second edition. This year, the number of running places has gone up to 30,000. Registrations will begin on September 10 and close on October 15, or as soon as running places for each race category are filled up, whichever is earlier, said organizers.

The half marathon boasts of a slew of partners and brands supporting it, including Prasar Bharti, CNBC TV18, IBN7, The Times of India, Reebok, Standard Chartered Bank, Indiatimes.com, Radio Mirchi and Le Meridien.

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Airtel breaks away with Procam’s Delhi Half Marathon

The fourth Delhi Half Marathon, managed by Procam

International, has found a new title sponsor in Airtel. The brand has signed a deal to that effect for the next three years. In its first three years, the annual event was backed by telecom player Hutch (now Vodafone). This year, the 21.097 km race has been scheduled for November 9, 2008, and carries total prize money of USD$ 2,10,000. Bharti Airtel sources reveal that besides traditional mediums like television, print and radio, the marketing campaign for the marathon will also be strong on BTL.

Tanaz Basrur, Director - Client Servicing and Business Development, Procam International Limited, explained the property’s fit with Airtel: “Airtel finds an extension of its brand in this initiative. Since Airtel has always been about breaking barriers – mental, physical and geographical. The nature of this sport allows to bring forth these very values for which, brand Airtel stands. Airtel sees this event as an extension of their brand. Delhi being Airtel’s real home, it will help the brand build a deeper connect.”

According to Basrur, Procam did not target a specific set of categories (including telecom)

BY Jagadeesh Krishnamurthy

Catpro creates annual property, the ‘Fun Olympiad’Catpro Events put together a four-

city Fun Olympiad, in aid of Save a Child’s Heart Foundation. The sports program is designed for ‘employees to have fun, relax and de-stress’, and toured the cities of Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Bangalore. Keeping in tune with the spirit of the Olympics, the event had regular games, but played on inflatable surfaces. The challenge for the players was to balance and play.

Catpro Events’ Sagar Pingali observed that there was very good response from sponsors. “The

while finalizing the new sponsor, after Hutch’s three year deal ended last year. “Any brand that believes in a vision – that exudes the spirit of the society, the thought of running for charity to support i n n u m e r a b l e causes apart from the huge brand image that this event builds, could be the title sponsor. An association with an event with such international stature only makes a huge leadership statement, be it any brand,” she added.

Explaining the reasons for choosing to associate with the half marathon, an Airtel spokesperson observed, “The Airtel Delhi Half Marathon is a perfect platform to celebrate the brand’s association with the city from where it began its remarkable journey 13 years ago. The marathon is an expression of hope and human spirit that brings people together and a whole city converging on a road to run is a celebration of this. The marathon is in perfect sync with Airtel’s underlying philosophy of ‘Breaking Barriers’

and is an effort to create resonance with the people of Delhi.” The spokesperson noted that it has been the brand’s constant endeavour to be associated with events such as these, and added that the brand had proactively sought ownership of such properties that are in line with its brand philosophy.

The brand’s creative agency, Rediffusion DYR, created a TVC that went on-air from September 17, showing children leaving all that they’re doing to get up and run. “Along with the TVC, we are launching a 360-degree campaign involving outdoors, radio and on-ground activation in campuses, malls, jogging parks, etc. to promote the event,” the Airtel spokesperson added.

Indian Army has also volunteered to help us and they are giving us all the manpower for all the cities. Participant interest is also quite high in all cities. And, we are planning to make this an annual affair,” he added.

The Hyderabad leg of the event was held at HITEX, and Pune is next on the calendar. The tournament was held at the Don Bosco Youth Center, Koregaon Park, from August 22 to 24. The property then moved to Bangalore (Koramangala Indoor Stadium) from September 4 to 6. It traveled

back to Hyderabad for a second round between September 11 and 14, and ended its journey at Chennai (Chennai Convention Center) from September 24 to 26.

There were 10 games in all - six individual and four team games. The team games included

Football, Volleyball, Kabaddi and Tug of War; while individual games comprised High Jump, Boxing, Bungee Run, Gladiator, Rock ‘n Roll and Rock Climbing.

The property invites individual and corporate houses to participate, with a

fund-raising objective to save the lives of 500 children affected by congenital heart diseases needing immediate treatment. The event was supported by BNY Mellon and Apollo Hospitals, and also NMDC, GATI, Indian Army and Radio Mirchi. Radio Mirchi was also the media partner.

L to R: Anil Singh (Procam), Dr. L K Bhanot(AFI), Suresh Kalmadi(IOA), A R Rahman, Manoj Kohli (Airtel), Vivek Singh (Procam) at the press

marathon with a prize money of Rs. 70 lakh, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, MP, said at a press conference that the event reflected one more face of this great city. She wanted the Chennai Marathon to project

to the national and international audience what the city had to offer. She described the event as ‘multi-dimensional’ and aimed

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On August 31, 2008, residents of Chennai woke up to a different

beat – the sound of running shoes. The MARG-GiveLife Chennai Marathon made residents of the city take up running for a cause. Lemon Tree was the event management agency handling the marathon.

For the uninitiated, Give Life is a corporate social responsibility initiative by NGO Tamil Maiyam and the Shriram Social Welfare Trust.

The half-marathon, organized in aid of GiveLife project for underprivileged children, had a mammoth turnout with the number of participants going well beyond the registered 50,000. They

1,70,000 runners wake up for a cause, at Give Life Chennai Marathon

thronged the Island Grounds in the city well before the scheduled 6.30 am start.

Fr. Gasper Raj, Founder, Tamil Maiyam, noted that the best among national-level athletes were part of the runners. “The number of people who participated in the race would conservatively be around 1,70,000,” he noted.

The marathon began near the Island Grounds entrance on Anna Salai and ended at Gandhi Statue on the Marina beach. Besides the 21.09-km half marathon for professional athletes, a 3 km run for those above 50 years was also organized. Another 7 km-run ‘City Run’ was flagged off by Union Sports Minister MS Gill.Detailing features of the half-

BY Jagadeesh Krishnamurthy at creating social awareness. Kanimozhi is one of the Directors on the Board of Tamil Maiyam.

Sportsmen like Kris Srikkanth and Dhanraj Pillay, Kollywood

actors Surya, Arya, Jeeva and TV stars like Anu Hassan participated in the event.

Real estate player MARG was the Principal Sponsor for the marathon. Associate sponsors for the event included Kalaingar TV, Star Vijay, NDTV 24x7, Radio Mirchi, The Hindu, Fly Kingfisher,

Shriram Properties, Radisson Hotels, Classic Polo shirts, OOH Media and Marathon-photos.com.

PDM India has bagged the mandate to organize the

opening ceremony of ICL Season 2 at Hyderabad, on October 10, 2008. Organizers have appointed

an internal team to handle match operations for the tournament. The event management agency for handling the closing ceremony is yet to be finalized.

The team from ICL will also be managing the BTL promotional activities for the event, which will be predominantly at college festivals.

Shariq Patel, Senior VP, Marketing and Operations, ICL, said, “Our BTL plan is more college festival-oriented as we feel it will give us the maximum bang for our buck,

and also a captive audience. We have a budget of around Rs 40 to 45 crores. ATL activities will be more extensive. This time, BTL is a very small chunk for us, at somewhere around 5 per cent of the entire pie.”

On the appointment of PDM India to handle the inaugural ceremony, Patel said, “We realized that for the opening ceremony, we need experts on the same. We had called the top three to four event management agencies, and PDM came out with a nice idea, and also were within our budget and

ICL Season 2 bets big on college feststimelines. We will decide on the agency for the closing ceremony soon.”

Organizers have tied up with many college festivals across the country for promoting the tournament. Tie-ups are underway to partner with local tournaments too. ICL also unveiled the country’s first ‘Indian Cheerleading Squad’, ‘ICL Zeebras’ which will be led by Rakhi Sawant, the ‘Queen Cheerleader’. The Zeebras will perform in all match venues, and ICL matches are to be held in Gurgaon, Panchkula, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

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‘Playboy Intimates’ arrives in IndiaBangalore-based event management agency Tentacles managed the launch event for ‘Playboy Intimates’ in India. Intimates is the lingerie brand of Playboy, brought to India by Kyra Mode Company.

A fashion show, choreographed by Shakir Shaikh, had models including Viveka Babajee, Alesia Raut, Shreya Bharadwaj and Lekha Ananthraman walking the ramp in the ‘Pink’ and ‘White’ collections on offer. The agency had setup a ramp which ended in a rotating surface, to aid models showcasing the clothes.

Rams Relationships manages show for ‘HDIL India Couture Week’

The Fashion Design Council of India’s (FDCI) first edition of ‘India Couture Week’, which began on September 16, 2008, in Mumbai,

had some of the top designers in the country showcasing their creations. The event, managed by Rams Relationships, had real estate player HDIL as the principal sponsor. Modern Stage Services supplied the Light and Sound equipment, while Viraf Pocha managed the lights.

HDIL India Couture Week was held at the Grand Hyatt Mumbai from September 16 to 21. Two theatrically produced shows were held each day of the event at 1930 and 2100 hours. Each designer was given approximately 22 hours and a ‘sizable budget’ to create their ‘fantasy environment’ within the main show area.

Sumant Jayakrishnan, who created the ‘overall look’ for the event, he also designed individual sets for designers Rohit Bal, Suneet Verma and Manav Gangwani. While Mahesh erected the sets for Kumar, J J Valaya, Varun Bahl and Anamika Khanna, Falli designed them for Manish Malhotra and Pallavi Jaykishan. Meanwhile, Ashish Soni and Tarun Tahiliani decided to entrust the task to Omung Kumar. Ritu Kumar’s sets were created by Mahesh.

Brandsmith along with Steel Authority

India Limited, A 2 Z Group and Ashoka

Hotel presented ‘In the Shadows of Walls’,

a photo exhibition by photojournalist

Renuka Puri in the New Delhi. These series

of photographs depicted life inside Delhi’s

Tihar Jail, and most of the frames that Puri

captured presented the jail’s stark and grim

tales in a remarkable maner.

Brandsmith hosts rare photo exhibition on female jail inmates

Speaking at the press conference to launch the event, Sunil Sethi, President, FDCI, said, “We are delighted to formally announce the staging of India’s first Couture Fashion Week, HDIL India Couture Week. This event will be a celebration of Indian fashion and will feature some of the country’s finest couture designers.”Organizers stated that the event aimed at providing a platform for Indian Couture, in the same way that Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week has been a powerful stage for Indian prêt-a-porter.

Elaborating on the association with FDCI, Sunny Dewan Wadhawan, MD, HDIL, remarked, “This move into fashion is in broader synergy with the Group’s long term strategies and objectives. We believe fashion, especially in the area of couture and bridal wear, is a central interest in the lives of a great proportion of Indians. We would like to be part of ensuring that India’s fashion heritage is preserved and nurtured.”