Cheers! They banked on the city

chandigarh: it's been quite an active corporate year for chandigarh. new launches, branded showrooms, visits from top shots, the city's seen it all in 2001. and the year's not over yet, what with it top honcho narayanmurthy of infosys expected in the city soon. the top shots who visited the city included aman verma, chief executive officer, hsbc, who couldn't stop waxing eloquent over the golf club's kebabs, the bank's first indian ceo of the country, zarir j cama... in fact, banking suddenly became a very happening sector. jaspal s bindra, ceo of stanchart-grindlays visited as well, as did rana talwar (now no more with stanchart). rana was as a matter of fact visiting lawrence school, sanawar, his alma mater, as chief guest for the founder's celebrations. hdfc's aditya puri also came to the city and delivered a talk at his alma mater, pu. many brands also entered the market and ceos visited to announce their launches. pradeep gidwani, managing director, foster's, came to the city and juggled a beer bottle or two for us while dinesh jain, managing director, the famous grouse, posed with a five-litre bottle to tell us that the city was the first in india to get the brand. also, bhupendra nagpal of royal sporting house inaugurated the store at sector 17, while rajeev karwal of philips, ss bassi of mitsubishi and t ishii of sony did the honours for philips, trium and sony world, respectively. wills sport also flew in a large number of its senior management to launch the lifestyle store in the city. other highvisibility stores that opened: planet sports (pepe's chetan shah was also here along with other heads), the home store and provogue. the youngest ceo to visit was probably siddhartha lal, chief executive of royal enfield motors at 28, who came to announce the bullet's new brand extension, the electra, while phil g spender, managing director of ford, visited to meet dealers. palio pranzini, the man behind the designing and execution of the palio in india also paid a flying visit to the city. then there was sabeer bhatia who came in to attend a wedding with industrialist friend sameer thapar. there was a change of guard at cii with piyush bahl exiting and chandrajit banerjee taking his place. hari s bhartia, owner of vam bhartia group took over as chairman of cii, northern region, and visited the city on more than one occasion, the second one being the cii's fair, which brought many corporates together. the most happening segment apart from consumer brands were twowheelers and four wheelers, which were launched at an amazing speed. the ones to remember were: honda accord, hyundai sonata, fiat palio, maruti versa, and the bike - the eliminator. the year was also marked by a big change in the way brands and people were launched and introduced - no more will shabby gettogethers do; now the elite are wined and dined and then given a sneak preview of the new brand; corporate honchos throw tea parties (the new word for press conferences) give power point presentations and have one-to-one interviews with the press. the new marketing mantra: presentation is perception. geetika_bhandari@indiatimes.com