Aufait Technologies wins Kochi round of Brand Equity Quiz 2009

April 18th 2009 - Calicut, India

ASMALLER metro brings along its own advantage, as was evident in the third regional round of `Idea presents the Brand Equity Quiz 2009' conducted in Le Meridien, Kochi. As the sun set in God's own country, hundreds of quizzing enthusiasts came to encourage the participating teams from their town. In the absence of defending champions Malayala Manorama who opted out at the last minute, the remaining seven were breathing easy. Quizmaster Derek O'Brien decided to make it even easier for the participants as the usual preliminary round of 30 questions was trimmed to 15 questions, with five questions in visuals. That quickfire round set the tone for the evening.

With team Airtel losing in preliminary stage, the fight was between the remaining six - Aufait Technologies, Dr Joy's Hospital, FACT, Finch Overseas, IMS Learning Resource and Indian Oil Corporation. No single team ever dominated the quiz, but it was IMS who emerged a favourite early in the evening. At the end of three rounds, they were leading with 34 points, cracking some interesting questions like `What is Tin Toy?' and `What does eco-fatigue on the Internet mean?' Just in case, the answers are: `Tin Toy is the first computer animated Oscar winner', and `Eco-fatigue on the Internet occurs from staring at ecology websites'. But it was Shamanth Rao and Paul Rajan Eralil from Aufait Technologies who were destined to be the chosen ones for the Brand Equity quiz finals. They maintained their number two position throughout the duration of the quiz, but cracked it in some questions like the TVC of Monster.com was played for them and managed to win an incomplete question asked by O'Brien in the last round. Team Aufait walked away with prizes worth more than Rs 1 lakh, apart from a chance to win the grand prize of Mahindra Scorpio in the finals to be held in Mumbai.

While this was Eralil's first ever quiz, Rao has participated in quizzes at college. When asked about preparation plans for the finals, "We shall do a lot of reading," they said. Aufait joins IBM from Bangalore and Sanmar from Chennai at the BEQ finals. Following Kochi, other regional rounds include Hyderabad on April 19, followed by Delhi on April 20, Indore on April 22, Pune on April 24, Mumbai on April 25, Ahmedabad on April 27 and Kolkata on April 29. The presenting sponsor for Brand Equity Quiz 2009 is Idea, the grand prize sponsor is Mahindra Scorpio. Kingfisher is the airline partner and Times Now the television partner for the event. National prize sponsors are Samsung Mobile, Samsonite, Lavazza, Citizen Watches, ITZ Cash Card, i-Tech, Featherlite, Vivada Cruises, Back 2 Barter, Digjam, Identiti and Antivirus Quick Heal. The local sponsors for the Kochi regional round were Zest, Whirlpool India Ltd, BPL Techno Vision, Malabar Gold, HTL Passion.


(From left) Paul Rajan Eralil, Derek O'Brien, Shamanth Rao and S Balaji, AVP-marketing Kerala, Idea Cellular

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=ETNEW&BaseHref=ETBG/2009/04/20&PageLabel=6&EntityId=Ar00602&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T