News Release
Mumbai, November 17, 2000
ICICI signs on Amitabh Bachchan as its Brand Ambassador
ICICI Limited (NYSE: IC), one of India's leading financial
services providers has signed an agreement with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan,
India's popular film star and TV show host, appointing him as ICICI's
Brand Ambassador.
Under the agreement, Mr. Bachchan will endorse and promote
the products and services offered by ICICI and its Group companies for
a period of two years.
Mrs. Lalita Gupte, Joint Managing Director and COO, ICICI
said, "Our aim is to be a significant player in the area of retail financial
services. Mr. Bachchan's presence is expected to provide further impetus
to the remarkable strides we have taken in this sector in such a short
time."
Speaking at the signing of the agreement, Mr. Bachchan
said, "I look forward to the challenging task of communicating a financial
brand message to ICICI Group's very diverse customer base of more than
five million people."
During his term as the brand ambassador, Mr. Bachchan
will play a key role in all major brand and product communication by ICICI.
He will endorse the ICICI brand through corporate and product campaigns
on television, print and outdoor medium. Mr. Bachchan will also participate
in select events such as new product launches, customer reward programmes
etc.
Mrs. Chanda Kochhar, Senior General Manager and head
of ICICI Personal Financial Services said, "Mr. Bachchan's universal appeal
will help us to effectively communicate our brand message - that customers
will find it safer, simpler and smarter to transact with ICICI - to a
very diverse customer base encompassing people from all sections and life-stages."
Mr Bachchan will endorse the main products offered by
ICICI Group distributed to customers through its technology enabled network
of more than 100 branches, about 343 ATMs, round-the-clock call centres
and on-line banking offered by ICICI Bank, close to 100 ICICI Centres
spread throughout the country and various offices of the group companies.
The products endorsed by him would include ICICI Bank credit cards, which
were launched in January 2000 and already have more than 90,000 customers;
home loans and car loans, both of which have shown remarkable growth recently;
ICICI Safety Bonds; ICICIDirect.com - the country's largest online broking
site, etc. Mr. Bachchan will also endorse proposed product launches such
as Insurance during his term.
Except for the historical information contained herein,
statements in this release which contain words or phrases such as "will",
"aim", "will likely result", "believe", "expect", "will continue", "anticipate",
"estimate", "intend", "plan", "contemplate", "seek to", "future", "objective",
"goal", "project", "should", "will pursue" and similar expressions or
variations of such expressions may constitute "forward-looking statements".
These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties
and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. These risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to our ability to successfully
implement our brand strategy, our growth and expansion, the adequacy of
our allowance for credit losses, technological changes, investment income,
cash flow projections, our exposure to market risks as well as other risks
detailed in the reports filed by ICICI Limited with the Securities and
Exchange Commission of the United States. ICICI undertakes no obligation
to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances
after the date thereof.
For further press queries
please contact:
ICICI: Mr Charudatta Deshpande
Head Corporate Communications,
Tel: 022-26538208
Fax: 022 26531116
email: charudatta.deshpande@icicibank.com