Chess champ Viswanathan Anand on brand endorsements

His rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. In 1988, at the age of eighteen, he became India's first Grandmaster. He was awarded Padhma Shri at the age of 18. After several near misses, Anand won the FIDE World Chess Championship.

In 2000, when Anand won the FIDE World Championship, there was also the rival "Classical" World Championship, held by Kramnik. By 2007, the world championship had been reunified, so Anand's victory in Mexico City made him undisputed World Chess Champion. He became the first undisputed champion to win the title in a tournament, rather than in matchplay, since Mikhail Botvinnik in 1948.

Anand won three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon, Spain after Garry Kasparov introduced this form of chess in 1998, and is widely recognized as the world's best Advanced Chess player, where humans may consult a computer to aid in their calculation of variations.

Anand has won the Chess Oscar in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, and 2007 becoming the third non-Russian player, after Bent Larsen of Denmark and Bobby Fischer of USA, to win the Oscar. The Chess Oscar is awarded to the year's best player according to a world-wide poll of leading chess critics, writers, and journalists conducted by the Russian chess magazine 64.

His game collection, My Best Games of Chess, was published in the year 1998 and was updated in 2001. The shy grandmaster featured on All About Ads for his recent tie up with technology firm AMD; this has been his second tie up with a computer related firm since his long association with NIIT.

It is not everyday that one gets to sit face to face with the World Chess Champion. NDTV got that opportunity and made the most of it.

NDTV: Hi Mr Viswanathan Anand- it is a pleasure having you on All About Ads. Last year you have been on a roll- WCC, Padma Vibhushan, announced undisputed chess champion. How does it feel?

V Anand: It was pretty much a dream year. I won a tournament in Linares last year and that was double, but the same day that I won that, I also became world no.1! At the same time I set my sights on the world championship about seven months later, won that too- so in one year I fulfilled a lot of my lifelong dreams, within a space of a few months- kind of a magical year.

NDTV: Tell us about your association with AMD.

V Anand: I generally work with a few companies that I am very happy with, NIIT and AMD. I am a big power user of technology; with chess you need to work a lot, you need to multi task a lot. So when AMD approached me I was very very excited. I have done TVCs before but Ihave just started with AMD.

NDTV: And it is the first time they are roping in a celeb endorser? So how does it feel that they have selected you? Someone from the chess field?

V Anand: I thought the parallels are very interesting- we are both about performance and memory and like I said I am a big power user of technology, so for me the was quite natural and I thought personally for me this very exciting.

NDTV: Do you feel slotted into stereotypes because of your association with certain kind of products. Is there another side to Viswanathan Anand that you would like advertisers to notice?

V Anand: To call it a stereotype is wrong since most often my association with products is a natural fit. Also I think if you are comfortable with the product that you are endorsing then you can do a much more convincing job.

NDTV: Young kids comprise a majority of your fan base. Do you have a message for them? Do you think of yourself as a stern intellectual chess player and not a fun person?

V Anand: I certainly think of myself as a fun person; I do not think I am stern or serious at all!!! Obviously at the chess board you have to sit and work a bit but even while I am playing I get up and go out and chat with other guys working. And even when I am working I am always multitasking. Chess is always going on in the background while I am playing other games on the side, surfing, and so on. So, no I do not think I am a stern person at all!!

NDTV: Chess as a game itself- India being such a cricket crazy country, especially with the IPL now- cricket and advertisers- there seems to be a magnet there and all the big bucks seem to be going in toward cricket; but since you have come in and you have become World Chess Champion do you see a sort of change in the perception amongst not just people but advertisers and brands as well?

V Anand: I think it is excellent that cricket is doing well but I do not think it rules out other sports from expanding; chess is expanding a lot in this country compared to where we were 20 years ago. It has also grown by leaps and bounds. And the number of young kids who take to the game is huge so I think in that way it is a very promising market for advertisers.

NDTV: Do you also believe in this day and age, a lot of celebs nowadays- be it from any field- academics, sports or Bollywood, apart from just marketing the products- a very big part of their role is also to market themselves. How much do you believe in this?

V Anand: I think as a sportsperson you are inevitably in the limelight; if that is marketing yourself that is fine and if you try to avoid it, you are also hurting your sport. I think any sport is in public eye so it is part of my job as well to be out there. But I think it is also important to take time for yourself and also prepare for your sport like in my case chess, and other stuff once in a while is important and fun too.

NDTV: Do you think your fan base has increased after WCC?

V Anand: It was very nice, was very touching. And I think as a sportsperson that is one of the things you look forward to. I would be lying if I said otherwise. If you come back as a world champion it is nice. It meant a lot to me but it is also nice that it meant a lot to so many others. I enjoyed it a lot; when you get to the next tournament you have to get your head back down to planet earth! But yeah, October- November- I loved it!

NDTV: How big a role do you think advertising plays and through your growing up years have you been brand conscious?

V Anand: I guess reasonably so. Nowadays sports and advertising are quite connected. It turns up quite often. I think it is healthy. Definitely for many sports it helps the sports people and the fans get a more enjoyable event and so on. But I think it is something that comes very naturally for sports.

NDTV: Well, it was a pleasure talking to you- thank you so much.

V Anand: Thank you.