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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  When a brand building exercise almost went out of hand
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When a brand building exercise almost went out of hand

The crisis was a tall one: an 88-foot Durga idol in south Kolkata that hundreds of thousands thronged to see; the police had to order the pandal closed 'indefinitely' to avert a potential stampede

On Sunday Amitabh Bachchan posted an image of the gigantic idols on his Facebook page, describing it as the tallest ever. The post went viral: it received over 200,000 likes and was shared by more than 7,000 others within hours. Photo: PTIPremium
On Sunday Amitabh Bachchan posted an image of the gigantic idols on his Facebook page, describing it as the tallest ever. The post went viral: it received over 200,000 likes and was shared by more than 7,000 others within hours. Photo: PTI

Kolkata: Very rarely does the police chief of an Indian city ride the metro or any form of public transport to defuse a crisis, but that’s what Kolkata’s police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha had to do on Sunday night to avert a potential stampede.

The brewing crisis was a tall one: an 88-foot Durga idol in the south Kolkata neighbourhood of Deshapriya Park that hundreds of thousands of people had thronged to see, stalling traffic for several hours.

Fighting crowds on the train and wading through a sea of people, Purkayastha reached the pandal and shut it down “indefinitely" as the police struggled to manage the crowd. In hindsight, with one deft stroke he managed to contain the damage to small injuries to a handful of people.

On Monday, he announced the pandal will remain closed to visitors for the remainder of the puja—that is till the end of this week—but despite the fiasco, the record-breaking idol has surpassed its billing for its principal sponsor: the Kolkata-based manufacturer of Star Cement.

A day before the police on Monday asked the organizers to fence off the pandal and block all vantage points with so-called view cutters, actor Amitabh Bachchan took over the digital campaign: On Sunday, he posted an image of the gigantic idols on his Facebook page, describing it as the tallest ever.

The post went viral. It received over 200,000 likes and was shared by more than 7,000 others within hours. And at Deshapriya Park, people were still gathering in thousands on Monday morning hoping to sneak in or snatch glimpses of the idol through gaps between the view cutters.

Cement Manufacturing Co. Ltd, a unit of Century Plyboards (India) Ltd, ran a campaign for two months, promising a spectacle. The idols made of fibre glass and cement and the tallest of which measures 88 feet broke into record books much before they were inaugurated.

But the organizers and the administration had completely failed to gauge the success of the campaign. “We had expected up to a million visitors every day, but had no idea what that meant in terms of crowd management," said Hiranmoy Chatterjee, a sports administrator and the president of the organizing committee.

The police weren’t any better off. The city’s mayor Sovan Chatterjee himself was present at the inauguration on Friday, which undermines the administration’s claim that the organizers hadn’t obtained permission for such an installation.

“The police took a very wise decision," said Sanjay Agarwal, director (marketing) and one of the promoters of the cement maker and its parent, Century Plyboards.

He wouldn’t reveal how much money his company had spent on the simple yet poignant campaign—“So big, really?"—but it went viral on every channel: television, radio, newspapers and billboards.

Asked what went wrong, if anything at all, Agarwal said he needs more time for introspection. “I am sure there’s lot to learn," he said.

“It was an attempt to take creativity to a level never previously seen," said Chatterjee. “What it led to is an unfortunate situation, but much worse could have happened."

As the police and the organizers trade charges over compliance, the cement maker may not be complaining about the returns.

Star Cement produces 1 million tonnes of the building material annually in Meghalaya and is a leader in the northeast. But in Kolkata, it is a fringe player, fighting to make inroads into the market, according to dealers.

Durga puja has a traditionally been a preferred vehicle for brand building for makers of construction materials. The timing helps: construction activities gain momentum from autumn.

Paint makers such Asian Paints Ltd, Berger Paints India Ltd and Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd, for instance, have for years been running awards to recognize creativity in Durga puja.

Whereas it has taken these companies years of campaigns to create recall for their offerings, Star Cement has captured people’s imagination within two months.

“The cost-benefit analysis will take time, and only the management will be able to do it," said the head of a leading advertising agency in Kolkata. The crowd of at least 1 million that the pandal drew on Sunday is proof of the campaign’s “unquestionable success".

“If I had led it, I wouldn’t be complaining," he added.

This person asked not to be named because he did not wish to get dragged into the controversy.

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Published: 20 Oct 2015, 12:19 AM IST
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