The Strategist Quiz (#284) Gaurav Sri Krishna / New Delhi Dec 17, 2012

1. The company that was established in the 1890s made Cigars and Cigarettes out of chocolate as an alternative to the tobacco variety. During the Second World War, the company’s machine shop even turned out parts for US Navy’s antiaircraft guns. Name the company.
    
2. What is the sobriquet given to start-up tech companies like NationalField and Amicus and why?
    
3. This person moved from company to company by cutting jobs and boosting profits. He believed that the primary goal of any business should be to make money for its shareholders. By firing thousands of employees at once and closing plants and factories, he earned nicknames such as Chainsaw Al and Rambo in pinstripes. Name him
    
4. Which company is linked to the Muppetgate blunder and why?
    
5. An actress, who started her career in 1966 as a child actor in the Telugu movie, is going to endorse a brand, which was introduced in the 1930s and was named after its owner family’s favourite horse. Name the actress and the brand?
    
6. What travel accessory is named after a person who served as the Chancellor of Exchequer and as the Prime Minister of Britain, both at different times?
    
7. Name the organisation, which is pushing for the development of a wireless medical device similar to the one used by Dr McCoy in the Star trek series for instant medical diagnosis. The organisation along with a maker of wireless communication technologies as its sponsor announced a prize $10 million. Also name the device.
    
8. Whose baseline reads “Bringing our best to you”? 
    
9. Who said this, “People ask me all the time, don’t you feel guilty for it? And I say that‘s ridiculous. It seems reasonable and rational to control the ____from where you normally sit and watch ____”?
    
10. Identify the brands they represent
    
    
    
    

Answers to last week's quiz (#283)

1. he name for this start-up brand was taken from a character in the song-poem composed by Roscoe Mitchell, an African American composer and Jazz instrumentalist. It was founded by 3 musicians from California, who sold freshly squeezed juice from the back of an old Volkswagen van. It was NASDAQ Company till it was bought by a global MNC. Name the founders, the brand and its current owner.
   Odewalla, a juice brand now owned by Coca Cola. It was set up in 1980 by musicians Greg Steltenpohl, Gerry Percy and Bonnie Bassett, after they took the idea from a business guidebook in Santa Cruz, California.
2. Connect the word TYPE with these typeface designs - Helvetica, ITC Franklin Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Optima, Times New Roman and what do you arrive at?
   Monotype Imaging Holdings, a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts. It is the owner of all these typefaces and is listed on the NASDAQ with the ticker symbol TYPE.
    
3. Name the rogue trader and the investment bank he worked for, who accessed a secret account in his firm nicknamed the Umbrella, to hide losses.
   The Ghanaian born and British educated Kweku Adoboli who worked for UBS and was convicted recently.
    
4. Which company is now presenting its corporate website as a digital magazine and has given it a name after an internal publication it ran for its employees from 1987 to 1997?
   The Coca Cola Company’s website is now presented as a digital magazine instead of a portal and is called Coca Cola Journey
    
5. This writing instruments brand is believed have been named after characters from a popular vaudeville comedy double act which appeared at a Music Hall in London during the early 1900s. It was the first modern day pen maker to reintroduce the use of casein as a material for making pens. Casein made from milk protein particles are dyed and then laid down under high pressure to form slabs from which the components are eventually formed. Name the brand and its founders.
   Conway Stewart which was founded by in 1905, Mr. Frank Jarvis and Mr. Thomas Garner. Its Winston Churchill edition pen comes with a book of Churchill quotes, a Churchill cigar and a bottle of Conway Stewart ink.  
6. Name the brand campaign that was made to bring the tea brands Agni, Gemini and Kanan Devan under its parent brand.
   Tata Tea’s Jaago Re (wake up) campaign which is now being termed as a social catalyst.
    
7. What does this acronym MOOCS stand for?
   Massive Open Online Courses. Related to the online education business.
    
8. In an article on innovation for the New Yorker last year, whom did Malcolm Gladwell refer to as the ‘Fox and the Henhouse’?
   Steve Jobs was the fox and Xerox PARC was the henhouse.
    
9. During the 1880s, which alcoholic beverage brand in England got shippers to use their barrels of beverage as ballasts on ships, travelling to and from Australia, guaranteeing its product many months of additional maturation in oak, without the need to find expensive storage space? 
   In 1887, Teacher's Highland cream whisky created a new brand called Australian Bonded Whisky using their barrels of Whisky as ballasts on ships travelling to and from Australia guaranteeing the whisky many months of additional maturation in oak, without the need to find expensive storage space. Innovative indeed.  
10. Identify the companies from their respective logos. Both are not connected to each other but are in businesses related to agriculture. It surely has a connection with slow left arm spin bowlers.
    1.Agriterra is the largest agri-operators and leading food providers in Africa. Its founder CEO is Phil Edmonds, a slow left arm spin bowler who played for England. 2. The second company is Organic Haus, an all-organic brand that sells products sourced mainly from German, Austrian and Europe. It was founded by slow left arm orthodox spinner Dilip Doshi who was one of the only two Test bowlers that played in their first tests after the age of thirty and yet went on to take 100 wickets.
    
    
    
    

The Strategist Quiz (#280) Gaurav Sri Krishna / Nov 19, 2012, 00:41 IST

1. This brand is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the formation of the rock band Rolling Stones by releasing a special edition of its product. The packaging is a crystal bottle that features the iconic lips and tongue logo cut in relief on the front of the bottle with a diamond-shaped decorative stopper. The bottle comes in a stylish box modelled after a black sofa. It also links the launches of its products with the milestones of the band starting from the 60s. Name it
    
2. What is common between the Hong Kong Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Reserve Bank of India buildings in Mumbai and the richest man in Ireland of the year 2011?
    
3. In the US it is the tag, in the UK it is either end or strap and in Japan it is the catch. What are these?
    
4. This product gets its name from the Greek word for “mound or hill”. Its original was version was supposed to have been mound shaped and not flat as it is now. Name it.
    
5. Which brand has an edition which reads “The 44th President of the United States Barack H Obama Commemorative Edition? It is a brand Obama is seen wearing most times and it gained mileage after Obama’s re-election recently.
    
6. What is egosurfing?
    
7. This renowned contributor and guru to the world of management was born in Rumania. He was a math whiz at age of 11 and did book keeping for an icehouse to help support his family. His father becoming a bootlegger in 1919 to help fund his education at University of Minnesota. After World War II, he realised that he could go no further within a corporate structure and therefore struck out on his own. Name him.
    
8. Name the company that runs its official blog called Snack Chat?
    
9. Which company’s base line is Always Learning?
    
10. Identify the brand from its logo.
    

Answers to last week's quiz (#279)

1. A town pharmacy in Wiesloch, a German city close to Heidelberg and Walldorf, created history in 1888. What was the incident?The town is referred to as the “first filling station in the world”. It is part of the Bertha Benz Memorial route. In August 1888, Benz drove in one of Benz’s newly-constructed patent Motorwagen No. 3 automobiles from Mannheim to Pforzheim, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over more than a very short distance (about 104 km). On the way, she had to find Ligroin, a solvent available only at dispensing chemists’ shops, to use as fuel. Thus, the still existing Stadt-Apotheke in Wiesloch became the world’s first filling station.
    
2. This entrepreneur owns all the apartments on the 100th and 140th floors of Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa. He rose from a salesman to become a billionaire. Name him and his business group.BR Shetty founder of NMC Healthcare group in Dubai.
    
3. What is the term used to describe certain products or goods whose demand increases as their price increases? Greater price confers greater status, contrary to the law of demand. iPhone 5 is being touted as one of them.Veblen Goods. The Veblen effect is named after economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified the concepts of conspicuous consumption and status-seeking in 1899.
    
4. In its 108 year old history this company’s cars sported newly designed badges for the first time in 2012 breaking away from tradition. What is being referred to here?Rolls-Royce celebrated the success of the 2012 Olympic Games at the closing ceremony with the three Rolls-Royce motor cars, sporting newly-designed badges, for the first time in the company’s 108-year history. The new badges, designed by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke design team, replaced the traditional R-R, which was used since start of the company.
    
5. In India it is called the Style factor, in the US it goes by the name Thread, what is it?Exclusive websites for women launched by P&G in partnership with Yahoo!
    
6. The Golden Ticket award is associated with which industry?The Amusement Park Industry.
    
7. Name the brand that has come out with a special edition that pays tribute to Jonathan Swift. The product’s design carries elements of the novel Gulliver’s travels. Multi layer inlays reminiscent of the ropes that were used to bind Gulliver and an engraving showing the imperial army of Lilliput marching between Gulliver’s legs are found on the product.Mont Blanc special edition pen.
    
8. Many 19th century inventors tried to import a rubbery substance found in a particular Central American tree and use it like rubber. One of them was an American photographer who in the 1860s bought some from a Mexican and failed to make rubber. Instead he ended up inventing something that was altogether new. Name the person and his invention.Thomas Adams, the inventor of the chewing gum.
    
9. Whose logo is an inspiration of the perforated screen in the Sidi Sayeed mosque at Ahmedabad?IIM Ahmedabad.
    
10. Identify the 4 brands from their logos and establish the connection between them.
    
    Energy supplement maker Honey Stinger, Trek bicycles, Anhueser Busch InBev and Nike were sponsors of Lance Armstrong the disgraced sportsman, who have withdrawn their sponsorship post the doping scandal.

The Strategist Quiz (#277) Gaurav Sri Krishna / New Delhi Oct 29, 2012, 00:33 IST

1. The variety of a particular agricultural produce gets its name from the fact that its high yields supposedly allow growers to pay their debts. Name it and mention the region/country where it is grown.
    
2. The CEO of this organisation got battered in a mugging incident a couple of years back. He was forced to handover a $11,000 watch. Post the incident, he called the company that makes that brand of watches and rest is history. Identify the person, the brand, and the resultant of his call.
    
3. This brand has variants named, Napoleon, Marco, Voyager and Royal. Its base line is No Gas only _____. Complete the baseline and name the brand.
    
4. What are gravity phones and name the first Indian brand to make them?
    
5. Expand the acronym DAGMAR and mention when and who coined it?
    
6. Mohammed Ali and Jimmy Connors were this brand’s spokesmen. At one point in time it launched a budget range variant of its product with the number 33 because it contained 33% of the fragrance of the original product. The company that introduced this brand is named after a Russian family. Name the brand and the company that first introduced it.
    
7. If one is tracking the share prices of infrastructure companies DPTP, GMR Group, India Bulls and DLF, what is the colloquial term being used for them?
    
8. Which brand’s baseline when translated means “The Car” in English?
    
9. Who said this “Many people use research as a drunk uses a lamppost – for support and not illumination”?
    
10. Identify this European luxury brand from its logo.
    

Answers to last week's quiz (#276

1. The founder of this company launched this brand in the 1890s in the northwest of UK. He wanted to make it affordable for people living in the overcrowded slums of Liverpool to protect themselves from the spread of cholera. Name the brand?Lifebuoy soap. William Lever, who founded Lever Brothers, one of the forerunners of Unilever, launched Lifebuoy soap in the northwest of England in 1894. He wanted to produce an affordable soap that people living in the overcrowded slums of Liverpool could use to protect themselves from the spread of cholera. He saw a business opportunity in a social issue
    
2. The ______. With a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window, the American CIA swear by them. Fill in the blank with the brand name and mention film from which this dialogue is taken.Walther PPK 7.65 mm. It’s a dialogue from the movie Dr.No (1962)
    
3. Name the founder of an Indian business group who was always known as “King of Coal”?Karam Chand Thapar, founder of the Thapar group. His first business was that of coal which he operated based at Calcutta.
    
4. Link a company who is enlightening the TERA era with MTNL and what do you arrive at?The Lofty tab. Digital tablets made by Teracom and launched by MTNL.
    
5. Some of the constituents of this brand are - Lemon peel from Spain, Coriander seeds from Morocco, Liquorice from China, root of the angelica plant from Dresden Germany, Cassia bark from Indonesia. It gets its name from an item gifted by actor Douglas Fairbanks to his actress wife Mary Pickford. Identify the brand?The Bombay Sapphire Gin distributed by Bacardi. Its name originates from the gin’s popularity in India during the British Raj and the sapphire in question is the Star of Bombay. It is a 182 carat (36.4 g) cabochon-cut star tar sapphire originating from Sri Lanka. The violet-blue gem was given to silent film actress Mary Pickford by her husband, Douglas Fairbanks. She bequeathed it to the Smithsonian Institution.
    
6. Which hospitality group has recently launched a new brand which is the Urdu/Hindi word for personal style?
   Hyatt Andaz. The first Andaz Hotel was opened in California.
    
7. What is common to Dolomitenmann, one of the toughest extreme sport relays on the planet that is held yearly in September in the East Tyrolean, or Dolomite Mountains of Austria, and a wakeboarding exhibition held at the 1,500-year-old Basilica Cistern in Istanbul Turkey?Initiatives supported by the Energy drink brand Red Bull.
    
8. Hon Hai Precision Industry Company is better known as?Foxconn Electronics.
    
9. For which brand was actor Salman Khan its first brand ambassador?Suzuki Motorcycle India.
    
10. Identify the company from its logo.
    Indus Towers, a JV between Vodafone Essar (42%), Bharti Group (42%) and Aditya Birla Telecom Limited (16%) and is India’s leading mobile towers company. The company, which operates in 16 telecom circles across India, provides services to all telecom operators and other wireless service providers Nadu.

he Strategist Quiz (#275) Gaurav Sri Krishna / New Delhi Oct 15, 2012, 00:11 IST

1. Where would one find these products and why? Gorilla balls vitamin enriched malt candy, Touch of Yoghurt Shampoo, Northwoods Egg Coffee, Male Chauvinist “awfully arrogant” aftershave?
    
2. Who took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal with the lines “Welcome, IBM. Seriously and why?”
    
3. A product which film star Jeetendra endorsed some years ago is being revived with Malaika Arora as its new brand ambassador. Name the brand and the company that owns it
    
4. Which company’s corporate mission or objective is stated as “Creating Kando Together”? Also mention what Kando means
    
5. What are the three-inch Dorothy, and the two-inch Dotty?
    
6. This brand has editions of its products inspired by the Hindu Gods — Lord Balaji, Lord Ganesh and Lord Shiva. It was established in 1915 and was named after the pseudonym of a leading Russian artist then. The artist’s pen name when translated into English meant “pencil”. Name the founder and the brand.
    
7. What is the first-of-its-kind initiative that is linked to Yamaha’s scooter brand Ray launched in India recently?
    
8. Who made this statement “I could prove God, statistically”?
    
9. What is the term used to describe assorted orthodoxies that govern the thinking of key enterprise decision makers? It is the main means a company uses to make a profit. It includes the cultural norms and beliefs that the company espouses that is deeply held, widely shared, and rooted in the behaviour of the company. It also has a negative connotation when arrogance and resistance to change set in
    
10. Identify both the images and establish the connection between them. An Indian connection.