Bata fights to stay young and relevant

The Swiss shoemaker focuses on new designs & expands its line-up with changing customer preferences

It is a rare sign of protest from a brand that is used to being trodden upon. Bata, a near-generic term for shoes among a generation of Indians, has sent out a public notice over a recently released trailer of the movie Jolly LLB 2. The company has objected to a dialogue where actor Akshay Kumar is berated for being the type of person who wears the Bata brand of shoes by Annu Kapoor. The company believes this devalues the brand in the minds of the audience and could be, it says in the notice: “perhaps at the instance of