The Sanmar group has become a household name in quizzing circles in recent times by reaching the final of all the business quizzes held in Chennai in the past few months. This comes on top of the group’s consistent performance over the years, emerging a finalist in the regional round of the Brand Equity Quiz in all the years except one since 1994. The four months since November 1999 have seen a flurry of corporate/business quizzes in Chennai – the Brand Equity Quiz, the MMA quiz, the Ad-Club quiz and a quiz organised by ITM (Institute for Technology and Management). The first National Management Quiz (NMQ) under the AIMA-ITM banner in Chennai on 25th February 2000 at Hotel Ambassador Pallava was the fifth and had Chennai bizquizzers rubbing their hands in glee.
Business Quiz
Sunday, January 23, 2000 – 10 a.m. There was a buzz in the air at Taj Connemara where Ad-Club was holding the first Business Quiz of the new millennium.
Quiz Master Suresh Kumar’s questions in the prelims – which saw over 30 teams vying for the 6 spots in the final – ranged from the simple to the sublime. A keen contest saw a high cut-off of about 21 points for an entry into the final which featured two freelance teams – Parijata (of which Yashwant Saran of Asco India was a part) and Corn Flakes. Sanmar (represented by S M Sundaram, Ramkumar Shankar and V R Venkataraman), Henkel-SPIC and Mudra from the corporate sector and a team from REC, Trichy, were the other contestants.
The lively final had a mixture of dry questions and visuals. To sample a few:
1. Which was the first paints company to be set up in India? (Shalimar Paints in 1902)
2. Who was voted the advertising icon of the century? (Marlboro Man)
3. What was unique about the first issue of the Playboy magazine? (It did not contain any date since Hugh Hefner, the founder was not confident whether there would be a second issue at all!)
4. “Experience a new high” is the baseline of ----- (Sahara Airlines)
5. Why did the Australian Broadcasting Corporation change its Post Box number to 9994 in 1949? (It was ABC’s tribute to Sir Don Bradman in the year in which he was knighted – to commemorate his Test batting average of 99.94!)
Team Parijata shot into an early lead and maintained it right through to win the quiz hands down. In a keen tussle for the next three places, Corn Flakes rallied ahead in the last round to finish second while Mudra and Sanmar tied for the third place. In the tie-breaker to decide the third team, the first question was:
Which new company’s logo has been designed by a spastic child? Both teams answered it correctly: Mindtree Consulting (a start-up venture of Ashok Soota, ex-Wipro). The second question was: Which was the first commercial icon to be displayed at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum? While Mudra answered Marlboro man, Sanmar gave the right answer (Singapore Girl) to clinch the 3rd spot.
National Management Quiz
Two Sanmar teams figured amongst the 33 teams which vied with one another to be among the six finalists in NMQ.
The evening saw quizmaster Derek O’Brien at his best as a showman. Distinctly different in content from the Brand Equity quiz, the prelims opened with Derek’s standard ‘local’ question: Which Chennai-based company started as Madras Motor Company and entered into a collaboration with a UK-based cycle manufacturer? (Answer: Enfield). Some more sample questions from the prelims:
1. In the bottling business, define the measure 0.568 of a litre. (Answer: Pint)
2. Which company advertises its product as ‘the original sports watch since 1860’? (Answer: Tag Heuer)
3. www.beeb.com is the website of which organisation? (Answer: BBC)
One Sanmar team – comprising Yashwant Saran and S M Sundaram – topped the prelims with 22 points (out of a possible 29) and qualified for the final which featured Blue Star, IDFC and three companies from the new sunrise sector – Future Software, Tata Liebert and Visual Software.
In the final, questions were framed to test the quizzers’ knowledge of industry, management jargon and general business trivia and their ability to think laterally.
For instance, a visual of Michael Eisner was shown with the music of Alladin accompanying it, the teams being asked to connect the two. (Answer: Disney. Mike Eisner is the CEO of Disney and the music was that of a Disney production).
The participating teams in rapt attention.
Other questions included:
1. Which company pioneered the concept of horsebreeding in India on a professional level? (Poonawalla Farm Houses)
2. Which ad agency in India recently completed its 25th year of existence? (Rediffusion).
3. In retailing, what is OLS? (Original Levis’ Store)
4. Which airline employs the line: “You take care of your business; we take care of your flying? (Lufthansa)
5. Why was Burger King controversially in the news in the context of Pokemon? (Burger King had tied up with Pokemon for promotion in the USA. Plastic toys of Pokemon characters were distributed along with burgers. The toys had to be withdrawn when it was found that some children had choked on these toys)
The last round was on the buzzer and featured business jargon, at the end of which Blue Star, building on an early lead, won comfortably. By answering the question:
“What do you call books which top the charts of the leading newspapers? It is a two-word answer, the second word of which is a funny actor’s surname.” (Answer: Bestsellers – Peter Sellers) in a tense last round, Sanmar finished second, pushing Visual Software to the third spot.
The Sanmar team which finished second at NMQ seen with the trophy. Quizmaster Derek O’Brien is at extreme right.