Brands
Luis Garcia & Sunil Chhetri grace Champions League Tour today
MUMBAI: Football fans in Mumbai rejoiced as they won the honour of hosting the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by Heineken® in India. Heineken® continued its Champion the Trophy campaign in India by giving local football fans a chance of a lifetime to host and unveil European club football competition’s most coveted prize – the UEFA Champions League Trophy in their city for the first time in the programme’s 11-year history.
The UEFA Champions League Trophy, known as the Holy Grail of club football, will be unveiled by former UCL winner and Liverpool FC player Luis Garcia in the presence of Indian football superstar Sunil Chhetri at the Mahalaxami racecourse on 10 April, 2017. Post the unveiling, eight lucky fans chosen from a Twitter contest will get a chance of a lifetime to play a match with Luis Garcia and Sunil Chhetri, in a five-a-side football game at the Turf Club. Players will be assigned to team Garcia and team Chhetri, as they will go head-to-head in a clash of legends.
Mumbaikars could get a chance to be a part of the unveiling and witness the match. For details, log on to @Heineken _IN on Twitter and @Heineken on Facebook.
United Breweries senior VP (marketing) Samar Singh Sheikhawat said: “For true football fans the iconic UEFA Champions League Trophy is the holy grail of the footballing world. Only the best football players in the world get to hold this symbol of the highest level of accomplishment in the sport. Heineken® is bringing the excitement of one of the most celebrated global sporting prizes for fans in India, through the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour and creating engaging fan experiences that go beyond the 90 minutes of the match”.
The UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by Heineken® will make its way across the bustling city of Mumbai, giving fans a chance to witness the glorious trophy. The trophy will make its first pit stop at Shivaji Park, followed by Carter road, moving to BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex). Fans can be part of the Heineken® Trophy Tour experience by participating in a variety of engaging activities at the pit stops, where they stand a chance to win exclusive Heineken® merchandise.
The tour will end at its final destination at the Taj Lands End, Bandra. This will be followed by the Trophy Tour Party, an evening of glamour and sports which embodies the Heineken® spirit of opening new worlds.
Mumbai was chosen for the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour through a Twitter contest by Heineken® across four cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata). The contest encouraged fans from each city to tweet, vote and compete for their chance to host the trophy. Each city was given a specific hashtag, for example: #ChampionTheTrophyBLR – for Bangalore, #ChampionTheTrophyMUM – for Mumbai, and fans battled it out online with the maximum tweets to win the rights to unveil the trophy in their city. The competition was close, but after days of continuous voting and tweeting, the city of Mumbai emerged victorious.
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.
