Brand Blunders
This Tata car was marketed as the "World's Cheapest," but the "cheap" label became a social stigma that killed sales.
Tata Nano
If 5 machines make 5 products in 5 minutes, how long will 1 machine take to make 1 product?
5 minutes
This brand's 2024 "Make Soan Papdi Great Again" campaign humorously addressed the "re-gifting" trauma Indians face during Diwali to revitalize interest in the traditional sweet.
Zepto
This Bangalore-born airline, founded by N.R. Narayana Murthy’s son-in-law, was named after the Sanskrit word for "Sky."
Akasa Air
This company’s name was inspired by the mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros — reflecting the founders’ goal to organize massive amounts of information
Which smartphone brand faced a global crisis when some of its phones started catching fire
Samsung
A farmer has 17 sheep. All but nine of them run away. How many sheep are left?
nine
This iconic "Namma Bengaluru" brand released a series of "Indiranagar Ka Gunda" ads featuring a raging Rahul Dravid, which became so viral that the phrase is now part of the city's slang.
CRED
This "D2C" electronics brand,became so successful that it now controls nearly 30% of the Indian wearable market, despite being initially dismissed as a "Chinese white-labeling" business
Boat
This food-tech giant was originally named "Foodiebay" in 2008. The founders changed the name in 2010 to avoid legal conflict with the global giant eBay.
Zomato
To prove their food had "no artificial preservatives," this fast food giant released a global ad campaign featuring a time-lapse of their signature menu item slowly rotting and covered in mold.
Burger King
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Mount Everest. (It was still the highest; we just hadn't found it yet).
This legacy Indian footwear brand, long considered "uncool," successfully rebranded in 2024 with the "Surprisingly [Brand]" campaign, featuring fashion influencers to prove their shoes aren't just for school kids.
Bata
This "zero-marketing spend" startup became one of India's largest stockbroker without ever running a TV ad, instead relying purely on word-of-mouth and education.
Zerodha
This global payments company was formed in 2000 after a merger between Confinity and X.com, the latter of which was founded by Elon Musk.
PayPal
After rebranding to a single letter in 2023, this social media platform's valuation dropped by over 70%, with major advertisers like Disney and Apple pulling their ads following controversial posts by its new owner.
X(twitter)
A man is looking at a photograph. He says, "Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s son." Who is in the photograph?
His son
Which Bangalore-based company, currently a decacorn, started as a 'hyper-local' delivery service called Bundl?
Swiggy
The logo of Zepto has a small case "z" with the purple background.What scientific/mathematical reason is behind this?
the lowercase "z" represents a Zepto—the shortest unit of time ever measured by humans (10-21 seconds). By using the lowercase "z," the logo mathematically encodes their promise of instantaneous delivery at a microscopic time scale.
In 2011, this mobile advertising network became the very first Indian startup to reach a $1 Billion valuation, officially becoming India's first "Unicorn."
InMobi
In 2024, the Karnataka government banned the sale of this popular street food "snack" across Bangalore after lab tests found carcinogenic (cancer-causing) rhodamine-B chemicals in the orange coloring.
Gobi manchurian
What is seen in the middle of March and April that can’t be seen at the beginning or end of either month?
This multinational consulting company once briefly changed its name to “Andersen Consulting” before eventually adopting the name derived from the Latin word for “to grow.” their current tagline is "High performance. Delivered." However, their previous, more famous tagline was just one word: "Results."
Accenture
This wireless technology is named after a 10th-century Viking King, Harald Gormsson, who was famous for uniting Scandinavian tribes.
Bluetooth
Before adopting its current name in 1994, this company was originally called “Cadabra,” but changed it after concerns the name sounded too much like “cadaver.”
Amazon