Company Press Release:
VIRGIN MOBILE STUMPS EVERYONE BY
BRINGING 20-20 CRICKET BACK HOME
VIRGIN MOBILE INDIAN HATKE LEAGUE GOES LIVE ON APRIL 17TH
Real cricketing and Hatke content; get online at www.indianhatkeleague.com and
let the game begin!
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New Delhi, April 15th, 2009: Cricket frenzy is
blazing ahead faster than the Indian summers as India gears up for a rush of
adrenaline with the cricket fever. To give Indians a dose of some great
cricket with more than a dash of masala, Virgin Mobile has announced
the launch of the INDIAN HATKE LEAGUE, an entertaining take on cricket. A fun
and interactive initiative in the online space, the Indian Hatke League
encapsulates everything that represents the Indian youth - adventurous,
witty, cheeky with a hint of chutzpah! This online destination will engage
Indian youth with its masala mix of cricket and excitement as well as a bunch
of incentives including a Hyundai i20 for the Man of the Series!
Indian Hatke League is scheduled to go live on April 17th, 2009
with the finals on May 24th, 2009. A total of eight teams with 11
players each will play 20 over matches in this day and night tournament. Distinctly Virgin Mobile, even the teams
have been impishly christened - Deccan ChilliEaters, Kolkata Tram Riders,
Chennai Super Muthus, Kakke’s XI Punjab, Mumbai Manoos, Delhi Dhinchaks,
Rajasthan Muchhads and Royal ChillMaadis Bangalore! |
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The website is peppered with characters
modeled on famous cricket personalities and youth icons. Ziddu with his wise
cracks and Inzoo with his guru gyaan certainly add to the colour of this
online cricket experience. The distinct Virgin Mobile flavor can also be seen
in the Indian Hatke League’s Team players such as Sachim Martodkar, Veeru
Suhag, Mike Lassi, Hari Bhajji, Lakshmipatni Maalaji and Handdraw Shallowman.
The spirit of the Indian Hatke League has also been captured in the design of
the logo - a naughty ball knocking out the stumps! To enjoy the game, users have to just login
at www.indianhatkeleague.com, sign up and play for absolutely no cost! They
need to register themselves under a team of their choice, play the tournament
representing that particular team, score individually and for the team during
the game play. They can play as many times as they want and submit their best
score for each match individually in the stipulated time for the game play.
The users also have the option to practice anytime, choose the team they want
to practice against to improve chances of winning during the scheduled
matches on the indianhatkeleague.com. If the user’s team loses a match and
does not qualify for next match, the user’s scores will still be retained. To
continue playing, the user has to sign up for another team and play and the
score history is carried forward. To spice it up there are lots of attractive
prizes worth Rs. 10 Lakh to be won such as Man of the Series, Most
obsessed User, Top 10 fastest Sixes, Sixer of the Series and a daily prize
for Man of the Match. At the end of the series there are grand prizes to be
won including a Hyundai i20. There are also points for
recommending a friend to the website that can be redeemed against Virgin
Mobile connections and exciting merchandize. Players on the website get
special Online Retail offers on products purchased from Virgin Mobile India
website. |
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Commenting on the announcement of this
innovative take on cricket, Mr. M A Madhusudan, CEO, Virgin Mobile India said, “The Indian Hatke
League is all about interacting with the Indian youth and giving them a taste
of some stimulating entertainment and sense of being part of a cricketing
phenomenon in a HATKE way. For the Hatke champions, Virgin Mobile has some
exciting prizes such as a Hyundai i20, Sony PSP and Virgin Mobile
phones."
Visitors to the website can also download
exciting Indian Hatke League wallpapers, and interactive game based screen
savers for free. The promotion of Indian Hatke League is also being done in a
Hatke manner. Besides the offbeat marketing and advertising campaigns,
community and fan pages will be created on social networking sites for the
Indian Hatke League. These will individually include eight teams, their
promoters along with 50 key team players’ profile and fan pages on popular
social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook and more. You can also catch up
with Zidoo and Inzoo these portals.
The website has been designed and executed by
Culture Mafia for Virgin Mobile.
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About Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile brand is India’s first national
youth-focused mobile service. Virgin Mobile branded services are being offered
to the Indian consumers by Tata Teleservices through a brand franchise with
Virgin group. Virgin Mobile India facilitates Tata Teleservices with experience
and expertise in designing, marketing and servicing of Virgin Mobile branded
products for the youth segment. Virgin Mobile services are being supported from
14 offices across India and the current employee strength is more than 500
personnel. While Virgin Mobile branded service can be enjoyed by customers in
over 3,20,000 cities, towns and villages across India, the focus on subscriber
acquisition so far has been across top 240 cities and is set to extend to more
cities by year end. Virgin Mobile branded handsets are available across 45, 000
outlets and its top up cards across 75,000 outlets nationally.
In the recently released SAARC Countries
Mobile User Survey 2008, Virgin Mobile India has been ranked as No. 1 in
Customer Satisfaction. On the overall satisfaction parameters Virgin Mobile
scored over 95%. Taking the recent Goa Fest 2009 by storm, Virgin Mobile India
bagged 7 Abby awards at India’s most prestigious National Advertising Awards
festival! This included 4 silver and 3 bronze Abbys for innovative and
distinctive campaigns across Print, Radio, Outdoor and Event. Virgin Mobile
India earlier bagged the Silver ‘Effies’ for its creative ideas and market
effectiveness of its clutter-breaking campaigns. It has also been rated 15th in
the Buzziest Brands of the year Poll 2009 conducted by afaqs.com.
About Virgin – The Group
Virgin, a leading branded venture capital
organization, is one of the world's most recognized and respected brands.
Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow
very successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony to
transportation, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays,
publishing and retailing. Virgin has created more than 200 branded companies
worldwide, employing approximately 50,000 people, in 29 countries. Its revenues
around the world in 2007 exceeded £11.5 billion (approx. US$23 billion).
About Tata Teleservices
Tata Teleservices Limited is one of India's
leading private telecom service providers, having a pan-India presence. The company
offers integrated telecom solutions to its customers under the Tata Indicom
brand, and uses the latest technology platform(s) for its wireless network.
With a customer base of nearly 35 million, Tata Teleservices Limited, along
with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited, covers over 320,000 towns and
villages across all of India’s 22 telecom circles. In November 2008, Tata
Teleservices entered into an agreement with Japanese telecom major NTT DOCOMO,
as part of which the Japanese company acquired a 26% stake in TTSL for USD 2.7
billion. The transaction marks a key step in the strategic evolution of Tata
Teleservices, as it moves towards a pan-India dual network presence. The
company also recently announced a unique reverse equity swap strategic agreement
between its fully-owned telecom tower subsidiary, Wireless TT Info-Services
Limited, and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited—with the combined entity
kicking off operations with 18,000 towers, thereby becoming the largest
independent entity in this space in the country. Tata Teleservices’ bouquet of
telephony services includes mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public
booth telephony and wireline services.