The Quiz Page
1. M.H.Hasham lost his family business of rice exports when the Govt. nationalised it in 1940. Unfazed he plunged into the oil business setting up Western India Vegetable Products in 1945. At the time of partition he was invited by Mohd. Ali Jinnah to join his ministry in Pakistan. He refused and chose to stay on in India. His company did not grow too much and at the time of his death in 1967 had just two fairly successful Vanaspati brands Sunflower and Camel. Which company?
WIPRO
2. Why did Homi Sethna of TOMCO name India’s first detergent bar, 501?
All the soaps at that time were imported from England and came in batches of 500. Homi Sethna was instrumental in launching India’s first ever detergent bar and in order to drive the point home to the British he named it 501
3. Which company was founded by Frank A. Seiberling and his brother Charles in 1900. Its main product was lined with long staple cotton?
Good Year
4. Why is IBM called the ‘Big Blue’?
IBM built its reputation on customer service. It had an army of blue suited salesmen who swarmed all over the US. Therefore it got the name Big Blue
5. This brand was launched in India with one of the largest advertising budgets – Rs. 15 Crore which was 60% of its turnover. 1.5 Crore of this was used to buy up 5 minutes of airtime on the same day at the same time on every TV Channel thus accomplishing for the first time in India, what in advertising jargon is known as a ‘road block’. Which brand?
Real Value vacuumiser.
6. Revlon was founded by Charles Revson. Then why is it called Revlon?
The ‘L’ was added in honour of the nail polish supplier Charles Lachman.
7. The 1900 Corporation, USA introduced a product under a brand name which became a huge success. The company soon adopted the brand name as the name of the company. Which company?
Whirlpool
8. In 1980, Rolls Royce launched their ‘Silver Spirit’ model highlighting a particular feature. What feature and why?
David Ogilvy’s ad for the Rolls Royce had the adline ‘At 60 miles per hour, the only sound comes from the clock’. The team of engineers who designed the car were not impressed that the clock made a noise. So Rolls Royce worked on installing a noise free digital clock that was soundless and installed it in the ‘Silver Spirit’. This was the feature that was highlighted.
9. One morning in 1935, a small time businessman Bishandas Basil hit upon the idea of setting up a sewing machine factory in Calcutta. He thus set up Jay Engineering Works. The machines went on to become a huge success. What name were the machines sold under and why?
It was called Usha after Bishandas’s daughter.
10. This person named his company’s leading brand after his nephew, the son of his brother Ramniklal. What brand and who?
Vimal and Dhirubhai Ambani
11. ‘I have 3 priorities – God, family and __________, and at work these get reversed’. So said the founder of this famous company. 8 months after he died his company sold its 50 billionth product and dislodged Sears Roebuck to enter the Dow Jones 30 Index. Name the founder and the company.
Ray Kroc and McDonald’s.
12. In the Ford Escort ad featuring Leander Paes he drinks a particular soft drink and has two books in the car. Name all three.
7 Up, Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and Jack Higgins’ Thunderpoint.
13. In 1884, a practicing and self-dispensing doctor in Calcutta, Dr. S.K.Burman launched three ayurvedic machines. The medicines were sold on a ‘value for money plank’ and were sent to patients through VPP. Two of the brands he launched were Juri Tap, an anti-malarial and Plaguin for Plague. He also launched a third brand, which was a digestive and exists even today. Later a company which was named in his honour took over the brands. Name the doctor and the company.
The doctor was Dr. S.K.Burman. He was affectionately called Daktar Burman by the locals thus giving the company the name Dabur. The third brand was Pudin Hara.
14. Who on whom – ‘If he was a plumber, he would control all the water in the world and force anyone who wants a drop of the precious liquid to cut a deal with him’.
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle on Bill Gates
15. The owner of this well known Indian brand once worked as a lab assistant at the Lalbhai Group’s New Cotton Mills, followed y the Gujarat Govt.’s Dept. of Mining and Geology. In his free time he would manufacture his product, which he sold door-to-door on Sundays for Rs. 3 a Kg. While his nearest competitor sold it at Rs. 15. Who and what?
Karsanbhai Patel and Nirma.
16. In 1994, IBM ran a campaign whose punchline was ‘Flight 4.0 to Chicago is delayed’. What was IBM referring to?
Microsoft’s delay in launching Windows 95 (Windows 4.0 officially) which was codenamed ‘Chicago’.
17. What was the contribution of Caroline Davidson, a college student to the world of business in 1971?
She designed the Nike logo ‘Swoosh’ for which she was paid $35.
18. This company was founded by Joyce and brother Rolle. Together they developed one of the world’s largest art organisations with over 400 artists. What?
Hallmark Cards.
19. What is the claim to fame of Sergei Zyman in the marketing world?
He was behind the disastrous launch of ‘New Coke’ in 1984.
20. In 1947, Digamber Parasuram Dandekar, a small time entrepreneur was sitting in an Irani restaurant in Bombay, drinking tea. An advertisement caught his eye then. Inspired, he launched a brand which controls 60% of its market today. Which brand?
Camel and Camlin Stationery. He saw the ad for Camel cigarettes, which went ‘I would walk a mile for a Camel’. He started Camel Stationery and his first product was Camel Ink with the line ‘Camel Ink writes for mils and miles without a break’.
21. What did Nestle do in 1938, on the request of the Brazilian Govt.?
It invented ‘Instant Coffee’.
22. Which brand’s logo, in the form that it appears on it products, always weighs 0.38 gms and is the surest sign of the authenticity of the product?
Lacoste
23. In corporate jargon, what is ‘Cold Calling’?
Making an unsolicited call in person on a perspective customer to sell a product.
24. According to Business Week, when the New York trade center was bombed in 1993, a man by name Jim McIntyre led a group of people across 34 floors in total darkness to safety. What did he use for light?
A Times Indiglo watch.
25. The first wholly Indian made commercial was for Dalda Vanaspati. Who sang the jingle?
Talat Mehmood.
26. Which major Japanese company started in 1915 with the manufacture of pencils and only later moved on to the products that they are today famous for, also retaining the brandname of the pencils for all their products?
Sharp
27. In the UK, what is a ‘Pink Pound’?
Money earned from offering services or selling products to gays.
28. According to McDonald’s , what is the ‘Golden Arches theory of Conflict prevention’?
No country with McDonald’s has ever gone to war with each other.
29. Bill Gates and his team at Microsoft took a team of reporters into a submarine during a product launch. Why did Gates do this?
To show what it was like, to live in a ‘windowless world’. The product of course was Windows 95.
30. In 1891, James C. Fargo, then President of a particular company went on a business trip to Europe. Fed up with a certain kind of hassle that he repeatedly faced, he asked the manager of the European branch of the company, Marcellus Berry, to devise a solution. What resulted?
Fargo had problems carrying money abroad. He could carry currency gold
or non-negotiable drafts or letters of credits, all acceptable only at
the banks they named. Berry came up with the idea of a cheque that could
be signed and paid for on purchasing and again on encashment, thus allowing
safe carrying anywhere the cheques were accepted. In other words, he invented
Travellers’ Cheques. The company was American Express.
© 1999 Gopal Srinivasan <mailgops@iname.com>