Nokia and Shah Rukh Khan pitch the fastest delivery of the season at the onset of India’s biggest cricket extravaganza. The world leader in mobile communications, announce its association with Shah Rukh Khan’s Indian Premier League (IPL) Team–Kolkata Knight Riders as its Presenting Sponsor. The announcement was made jointly by Mr. D. Shivakumar, VP and Managing Director, Nokia India and Shah Rukh Khan, the king of Bollywood.

“Cricket and Shah Rukh are two passions that youth across the country connect with, regardless of language or geography. Today, we are extremely privileged to be associated with Kolkata Knight Riders and look forward to creating an action-packed season for our young consumers,” said Mr. D. Shivakumar, VP and Managing Director, Nokia India. “This initiative is an extension of our commitment to connect people with their dreams and aspirations by giving them an opportunity to be a step closer to their icons and share a platform with them,” he added.

Commenting on the association with Nokia, leading Bollywood star, Shah Rukh Khan said “Nokia’s sponsorship of the Knight Rider team is the coming together of two big passions of Indians- cricket and keeping in touch with their loved ones. Kolkata Knight Riders are proud to be associated with Nokia and together, we are set to give cricket fans an exciting series.”

The duo has also launched the much awaited promotional album– ‘Nokia 2 Hot 2 cool’ featuring five songs exclusively composed for the team by India’s leading music artists. As a special offer to Nokia consumers, the album will be available with all Nokia 5610 & Nokia 5310 XpressMusic handsets.  

Nokia and Shah Rukh also unveil an innovative consumer contest titled ‘Millan of the Villains’. According to Shah Rukh, “My Knight Riders are a seemingly disjointed bunch of brilliant players, who really intimidate all opponents whenever they are on the field, and there is a lot of intrigue as to how this bunch will actually perform together. Nokia is enabling this “connection” between the apparently “disconnected” and through this contest we are asking for people’s help in helping my players perform well together.” Aimed at creating platforms for consumers to ‘connect’ with the Kolkata Knight Riders team, the contest invites people to send in their ideas on how they would make the ‘millan’ of Shah Rukh's players possible.  The contest will run for 4 weeks simultaneously with the IPL extravaganza and 5 winners will be chosen every week. The winners will get the chance to watch the Kolkata Knight Riders match in Eden Gardens, Kolkata on May 16, 2008 from the Nokia Pavilion, with Shah Rukh Khan himself. They will also get the opportunity to meet Shah Rukh and his team members at an exclusive Nokia ‘After Game’ Party the same evening.

Blog with Shah Rukh! This contest will also see Shah Rukh blogging from his Nokia device with his fans for the first time ever. As part of this contest, Nokia consumers will get the rare opportunity of engaging in an online dialogue with Shah Rukh on the Kolkata Knight Riders, IPL and of course, his association with Nokia on www.nokia.co.in/millan .

As part of the company’s ‘youth connect strategy’, under the Cool Sports pillar, Nokia has had a strong association with cricket in the past few years.  Last year Nokia was associated with the first ever ICC World Twenty20 Cup as one of the global partners. In 2007 Nokia was the ‘on air’ sponsor for the West Indies World Cup as also for the Champions Trophy held in India, 2006. 

Sourced From: Text 100 Public Relations Consultancy