Brands
Premier Badminton League assigns digital mandate to Columbus India
MUMBAI: Premier Badminton League (PBL) has assigned its digital mandate to Columbus India, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network.
Managed by Sportzlive, it is India’s highest prize money tournament in the world of badminton leagues. The league goes live this season from 23 December 2017 till 14 Jan 2018.
Sportzlive founder Prasad Mangipudi says, “This relationship will help Sportzlive & PBL to get media engagement services from Columbus’ unique ‘Media Engagement Framework’, enabling the event to reach millions of digital audiences in India & abroad.”
Sportzlive managing director Atul Pande adds, “Digital is going to be a focus area of our marketing spends as our viewers are majorly online enabling us to build a larger sporting community across all sporting events managed by SportzLive.”
Columbus India CEO Anurag Gupta mentions, “Columbus’ unique digital media services framework will allow real-time reporting on not just engagement but also on the buzz to help Sportzlive communicate with its audience in real time, this will be our second sports media engagement account after successfully working with Sportzlive for #CueSlam earlier this year.”
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.
