MAM
Valuemart Retail ropes in Tendulkar as brand ambassador
MUMBAI: Bangalore-based B2C and Retail Solutions firm Valuemart Retail (India) has signed a three-year deal with Sachin Tendulkar to be its brand ambassador.
This is Tendulkar’s first brand endorsement this year. He was last signed by BMW in October 2012.
In the time where his colleagues like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli are getting a number of endorsements, will Tendulkar’s brand value lessen?
According to Kwan COO Indranil Das Blah, Tendulkar has reached a stage where no one else has yet. “Sachin is in an interesting phase of his life. People are talking about him — whether he is playing or not, retiring or not. He will always continue to attract people. Even after retirement, he will continue to get endorsements because that will be the only place on screen where he would be seen. As far as one is getting him at a good cost, I can’t think of any reason why the brands should stop signing him.”
Tendulkar will promote a range of commemorative products conceptualised by Valuemart Retail, involving the use of his images, photos and logo.
Valuemart Retail founder director C K Vasudevan said, “We are extremely honoured to have Sachin as our brand ambassador for the new initiative planned by the company. Sachin is a global sports icon and personifies the highest standards of excellence and integrity. We believe that we share the same values as Sachin and commit ourselves to deliver the same standards of quality and excellence in our new product initiative.”
Tendulkar said, “I met with Vasudevan and his team sometime back and was impressed by the new initiatives that they are working on. I am happy to be a part of Valuemart’s plans and wish him and his team all success”.
MAM
‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
