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WHSmith, best known for its chain of convenience stores at airports and railway stations besides other places across the world, on Wednesday stated it was the principal sponsor for the IPL cricket team SunRisers Hyderabad.
The UK-based retailer, engaged in the sale of books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, confectionery, travel and entertainment products, opened its first store in India in partnership with Travel News Services (India) Private Ltd in July 2010. It currently operates nearly 34 stores in the country, more than half of them at airports.
As part of its promotion strategy, WHSmith along with SunRisers Hyderabad, owned by Kalanithi Maran of the Sun TV channel network, will now initiate a slew of in-store activities, on ground promotion and provide merchandises and customised gifts in order to reach out to the cricket fans in India and West Asia.
“ We will be undertaking lots of marketing initiatives at our store in order to reach out to our target audience and make the game more interesting. We have plans of getting digitally signed bats, balls, caps and other merchandise in our stores for cricket aficionado. Apart from this, we will also provide customised T-shirts, jerseys, players posters etc at our stores,” group chief executive officer of Aventus Retail, WHSmith franchisee, Arun Barathi, said.
“We are glad to have WHSmith as our lead sponsor on board with us. We are looking forward to a great season ahead,” SunRisers Hyderabad chief executive officer, K Shanmugam, stated.
