ICOTY is here and the TV jocks hate it

The Indian Car of The Year awards have been constituted and the nation's leading 13 automotive hacks (from the seven leading enthusiast publications) are part of the team. They will decide, what else, but the Indian Car of The Year. And the ICOTY will coexist with about a half a dozen Car of The Year awards already present. While the hacks in the ICOTY will use their collective wisdom to declare a car of the year, their respective publications will continue withe sheer stupidity that these COTY awards are.

So while we have each mag giving a COTY, their are other silly awards like manufacturer of the year, Import car of the year, the most improved car of the year and, hold your breath, the best car above 2700cc. I recebtly went to one of the most well known COTY functions this year as part of my assignment with Hindustan Times City supplement (I call it the fun part of my work). The Swift was the Car of the year which should not come as a surprise to anyone who even remotely follows the Indian car scene.

However what must have been difficult was deciding the manufacturer of the year - Honda (why? what wrong have others done?), import car of the year (Audi A4! duh!) and some other silly ones. In essence it was a self patting PR hogwash. And it doesn't stop here. The next day, the same exercise was repeated by two magazines and then another one did it the day after. And why does a serious market reaserch agency like TNS need to give away awards? Makes me wonder how they are pitching for business.

Deepesh Rathore
Research Editor
deepesh.rathore@supplierbusiness.com
For more details on ICOTY visit at www.theautodiary.com