The Tatas pull out all stops to cheer the fastest Indian
February 28, 2005

Narain Karthikeyan, the fastest Indian on wheels, is all set to begin his dream run with Team Jordan. Tata Racing is at the forefront of motor sports in India and in fact, has established a global presence with their association with Narain and Jordan. As part of the Tata Group’s continuous effort to encourage and support the Indian racing star, Tata Racing has planned a blitzkrieg of initiatives that leverages patriotic sentiment and goodwill from the public at large, especially the Indian youth and other F1 enthusiasts. Come March 6, fans will watch him make his Formula One debut and compete against the best in the world of motor sport in the Australian Grand Prix. Tata Racing gives them a unique opportunity to manifest their support for Narain’s endeavour by enabling them to send their best wishes to Narain before his first race at Albert Park, Melbourne.

Says, Romit Chaterji, vice president, corporate affairs, Tata Services, "Tata Racing stands for all that is motor racing — energy, youthfulness, international, dynamic and tech-savvy. Our long-standing association with Narain is paying rich dividends as Narain is all set to blaze the tracks in Formula One. The excitement has reached frenzy as the entire nation is waiting with baited breath to watch him make his debut in the hot seat at Melbourne on March 6, 2005. It is at this moment for us Indians, to stand together and provide him all the support and best wishes to give him all the confidence to make his debut. Tata Racing with this latest initiative helps the ardent supporters to reach out to Narain Karthikeyan wishing him all the best."

Signature campaign

• Tata Racing, in an interesting exercise, has designed a unique ‘signature campaign’ to wish Narain Karthikeyan the very best for his debut.
• This signature Campaign would be conducted from March 1, 2005 till March 5, 2005 from 10am till 8pm each day.A specially designed vehicle branded with appropriate messaging and imagery would be used as the promotional vehicle for this ‘signature campaign’.
• 2 such vehicles would move around the cities of Mumbai and Pune. One such vehicle will move around Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad.
• In Mumbai and Pune, two promoters in each vehicle, dressed in rally gear will get people to understand the campaign, get them to write messages on a pre-printed card, as well as on a graffiti board mounted on the vehicle.
• In other locations, one vehicle will move around the city with a MC and few promoters. At key locations the vehicle would stop and the promoters would help people reach the vehicle to send in their good wishes. To keep the audience engaged, the MC would give some interesting information on Nk and ask the well wishers to write their messages. Interesting, creative messages will be recognized by in form of their messages being read out to NK.
• The route that the vehicles will take is designed to cover the entire city. Starting from 10am onwards, the vehicles would park at each destination on the route for 45mins –1 hour before moving to the next destination in the route thus covering the key spots by 8pm. (Refer Annexure for route map of each city.)

Wireless campaign

• In another attempt to reach out to the target audience, Tata Racing has launched a wireless campaign in association with mobile2win. This wireless campaign would also be promoted through a television media.
• Scrollers on ‘Join Tata Racing to wish Narain Karthikeyan the very best for his formula –1 debut, send message and win a ticket to Bahrain Grand Prix’ would run on the television channel at regular intervals.
• Viewers can send their good luck messages to Narain by smsing TRAC followed by their message to ‘8558’.
• With each good luck message, the participant will receive a trivia question with options on Narain Karthikeyan as a reply.
• The participant has to answer the question correctly and SMS TRAC followed by the key word option for the question asked on the screen.
• People can also get lucky as the person who answers all questions correctly and posts the most creative message would win free ticket to the Bahrain F1 Race with an exclusive opportunity to have dinner with the fastest Indian.

Graffiti walls at malls

• Additionally, on February 27, 2005 and February 28, 2005, Tata Racing had installed Giant sized (10’ x12’) billboard graffiti walls and a drop box at five major malls viz. Crossroads, Hi-Street Phoenix, Fun Republic, Imax Adlabs and Inorbit Mall in the Mumbai city.
• At these locations, distinctively attired volunteers approached people to pen down a message in support of Narain.
• Thousands of people made their shopping experience worthwhile by penning Narain a message on a postcard and some of the creative lot used the graffiti wall and the stationery given by volunteers to post messages.
• Tata Group would collect all these messages and either courier it or personally hand it over to Narain Karthikeyan at Melbourne before the D-day.

So join in the league of the Tatas by sending a message to Narain Karthikeyan to show that the engine is not the only thing that makes the car go fast, but also our support for him plays a part in it!