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Business

Hum Aapke Hai Branson

By: Santosh :+: Under: Business
On: ⋅ November 19, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Billionaire Richard Branson’s “baraat” finally arrived with Branson on horseback. He entered the “mandap” where a man, his partner, was waiting for him. Brason then garlanded his male partner signifying their union ……….. in business [link].

This scripted spoof of an Indian wedding procession and marriage ceremony, was Branson’s way of announcing a technology tie-up with Fever 104 FM, a private Indian FM company.

Branson: I’ve never married a man before
img: via BBC

To those unfamiliar with the FM market in India, private FM stations started in the mid 90s and received a major boost in 2006 when there was a major deregulation of government norms on private FM channels. To this day, news cannot be broadcast on private FM channels.

Branson in personal life is happily married, second marriage, and has two children. He also owns Virigin Airways, non-stop New York-Mumbai flight, point of interest for most desi folks, and Virgin Records.

There a few good opportunities for catchy headlines here:
1. Virigin wants to enter India
2. Horseback Branson

Go ahead and give it your best shot. I will change the headlines for this post to the catchiest headline conjured by our readers.

Also what is your opinion on this little media campaign? Was this symbolic wedding ceremony between Branson and the chief of the FM company:
- cheesy? I mean, c’mon. We all know it’s a “union”. But a wedding to signify that?
- crass? I’m Indian and this is offensive to my culture. Light the torches and we shall go burn some cybercafes. Time to invest in Branson effigy stocks.
- clever? Instead of a stuffy news conference that gets buried in the business pages, this was a clever way of grabbing some space of the front page.

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