Brands
Girnar tea partners with Ajay Devgan for ‘Raid’
MUMBAI: Girnar Food and Beverages has joined hands with Ajay Devgn starrer upcoming Bollywood film Raid. Leading film marketing and brand alliance agency, Blue Bang Media & Entertainment clinched the plum deal bridging brand Girnar Tea and mass entertainer Raid.
Girnar Tea, a brand which started its journey four decades ago, now holds the reputation of being one of India’s finest tea brands, with a respectable name among tea connoisseurs across the globe. Its prime ethos rests on a yearning to promote and offer world class teas to its customers fuelled by a passion for excellence.
The deal entails a co-branded TV commercial that has been created to seamlessly merge the brand with the film, featuring the lead star of the film Ajay Devgn. The salient features of the brand inherently align itself to the central character of ‘Raid’ played by Ajay Devgn hence the association fructified. The TV spot spans over 20 seconds and will play out across leading media platforms.
Girnar Tea director Viduit Shah says, “An excellent fit between our brand and the character played by the star of the film Ajay Devgn in Raid attracted us towards the tie-up. Our TG of kadak-chai lovers look up to Ajay Devgn as a symbol of toughness and principles as portrayed in the film. Also, it was a great opportunity to reach our core target audience by aligning our brand with an entertainment platform.”
Blue Bang Media & Entertainment MD and CEO Vinay Punjabi adds, “The key objective for the brand Girnar was to engage with their core TG which is tea lovers through an entertainment platform that reaches out to a large audience base of similar demographics and psychological profiling. By associating with the Hindi feature film, Raid, Girnar Tea accomplishes its objective of connecting with its core TG through an entertainment platform that echoes the salient features of the brand.”
Raid is a thriller film produced by T-Series and Panorama Pictures, starring Ajay Devgn, Ileana DCruz and Saurabh Shukla in lead roles.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
