By Chhavi Tyagi
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GroupM beats Starcom and Madison in yacht racing

The international movie channel from UTV Entertainment Television recently conducted a yacht racing competition for media agencies

The international movie channel from UTV Entertainment Television recently conducted a yacht racing competition for media agencies. This was UTV World Movies' way of creating a meeting point with its clients to interact about the channel's brand proposition.

Sameer Ganapathy, business head of UTV World Movies, says, “We wanted to create an entertaining platform for our fraternity members and clients to get together at one place. This yacht sailing competition not only engaged our clients in a spirit of competitiveness, but also served as a great brand fit. As the channel believes in exposing its audience to various formats of cinema, we thought we’d take up an upcoming sport like yacht racing and give our clients a different experience.”

The event was conducted on May 30, in association with the Indian Naval Watermanship Training Centre (INWTC) in Mumbai. Six media agencies participated in the race in teams of four members -- Lodestar Mumbai, Starcom Mumbai, Madison Mumbai, GroupM Mumbai, Madison Bangalore and Starcom Delhi. GroupM Mumbai picked up the winner’s trophy, while Starcom Delhi and Madison Mumbai were the first and second runners-up, respectively.

GroupM beats Starcom and Madison in yacht racing
Apart from the exhilarating experience of participating in a yacht race, the participants also received gift vouchers, along with plaques. Cdr Farrokh Taraporevala from the Indian Navy, who has also been a World Champion in yacht racing twice, led the race. Since most of the participants were new to the sport, therefore, to ensure proper security, the channel arranged for a pre-race briefing by the Navy. Not just that, all the boats, J-24, had two experts accompanying the team.

Though the race was supposed to be a one-off initiative, the response received and the buzz generated has made UTV World Movies decide to make it an annual affair. Ganapathy says that the next year will see GroupM defending the title.

For the record, UTV World Movies was launched in February 2008. With a collection of over 500 titles, the channel showcases world cinema with English subtitles from over 40 countries.

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