Big Bazaar is one of the most popular hypermarket retail chain in the value segment of Pantaloon Retail accounting for bulk of its overall retail business.

Big Bazaar has filed two applications asking the trademark office to cancel registrations granted to R-ADAG for for some of its businesses. “BIG” is a moniker used by R-ADAG to brand most of its media and entertainment related businesses like Big Flix, Big Street, Big TV, among others. While, the trademark granted to Reliance contains one ‘a’ in Bazar, Pantaloon uses two ‘a’s in its Bazaar brand name.

According to the law firm’s partner Sunil Krishna, “(the trademark to R-Adag) was wrongly granted. They (R-Adag) adapted the mark in bad faith…their adaptation is dishonest. They have knowledge about us…they have knowledge about our reputation and they have knowingly done it.”

In its applications, Pantaloon has argued that the trademark should be restored to it because it has been running a chain of hypermarkets under the Big Bazaar brand name for many years and that the brand name enjoys immense goodwill in the market, reports Live Mint.

Interestingly, Pantaloon can’t move courts even if R-ADAG goes ahead and opens stores for selling products like apparels for which the trademark has been granted to the group, since according to some experts in the field, Reliance’s application for grant of the trademark was not opposed prior to its registration. “Moving a rectification application is the only way to remove a registration once granted.”

In an email response to Mint, a spokesman of R-ADAG has said that his group enjoys a “great relationship with the Future Group. It is a non-issue and will be decided to mutual satisfaction.”

In a business coup of sorts, Anil Ambani-led Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has obtained two approval for use of trade mark ”Reliance Big Bazar” for products falling under the categories of (1) games and playthings, gymnastics and sporting articles, and decoration for Christmas trees, and (2) clothing, footwear, and headgear.

The trademark authorities, according to a notification posted on their website, have allowed the Anil Ambani-led group to register the name, says a Live Mint report.

The Ambani group had made applications for registration under six categories, however, four of them have been contested by Kishore Biyani-led Future group and Surat-based Asim Plast Pvt. Ltd. This will come in direct conflict with Future group as it operates India’s largest hypermarket chain under the brand name of Big Bazaar.

Apart from Reliance name, the two brand names differ only in terms of a letter ‘a.’ While Biyani’s Bazaar uses letter ’a’ twice in its name, Ambani’s Bazar carries just a single ‘a’ in its recently approved brand name.

Pantaloon Retail, the owner of Big Bazaar retail chain, is now left with no alternative but to go to courts to stop ADAG from using a name similar to its biggest chain. Big Bazaar accounts for almost two-third of retail sales of Kishore Biyani-led group. Otherwise, Anil Ambani-led R-ADAG can not be stopped from selling clothing, footwear, headgear, games and playthings, among others, under the Reliance Big Bazar brand name, say experts.

Interestingly, R-ADAG has adopted “BIG’ as an umbrella word which it has begun prefixing with all its brands in media business. For example, Big Cinema, Big Flix, Big TV, Big Music, Big Street, among others, have already become popular brand names for Anil Ambani group’s new generation entertainment and media ventures.

Justifying the use of BIG word in its name, R-ADAG had once averred that Reliance Big Bazar is “one of the many names under consideration by Reliance Big Entertainment for aggregated retailing of our entertainment products and services under one umbrella brand.”

BIGFlix, India’s largest online and offline movie rental service, which is a part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance BIG Entertainment, has joined hands with Kishore Biyani-led Future Group.

The alliance with Future Group provides for marketing of promotions and schemes to all customers of Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Central, Depot, HomeTown and e-Zone across 9 cities in India viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and Indore.

BIGflix has already offered a special promotion package for customers participating in the ongoing The Great Indian Shopping Festival of Future group. The offer entailing concessional subscription rate of Rs 99 for one month and of Rs 150 for BIGflix is available to customers making purchases from Future Group retail chains across formats.

” We are a purely retail based format group with an inevitable single minded customer focus all the time. Our partnership with BIGFlix.com will help us provide our customers a great value proposition with movies at home, another entertainment avenue catching up at a fast pace with such players in the industry. Movies have always been an integral form of entertainment for every household today and we are more than happy to enhance our customers’ shopping experience this way,” said Rajan Malhotra, CEO, Big Bazaar, while talking about the alliance.

“Kishore Biyani’s Future Group has a massive retail presence with a large loyal customer base in the country. We are excited about our partnership with the group and confident that this alliance will help reach a much wider base of customers. With this partnership we are looking forward to many more offers for our existing as well as new customers in future. Also, alliances and tie-up with leading companies across sectors is on the anvil which will help us meet with our objective of bringing in entertainment at home in the common man’s daily life anytime anywhere, thus revolutionizing and taking home video industry in this country to the next dimension,” said Raviraj Jayram, Head- Marketing, BIGFlix.com, while announcing the tie up.

Reliance Money, part of Anil Ambani-led ADAG (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group), which specialises in distribution of financial products, has forayed into online (electronic) retailing of entire spectrum of consumer products including apparel, accessories, books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, home appliances, and flowers.

The e- commerce web portal, called RelianceMoneyMall, according to Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Reliance Money’s CEO, looks like a big shopping mall in electronic format where consumers are able to buy whatever that can be sold online.

Reliance Money is already offering financial products like IPOs, mutual funds, insurance policies and gold coins through its financial portal.

ADAG, according to a PTI report, is aiming to occupy top online retailer slot within a period of just one year. The group is expecting to at least garner a 20 per cent of the online business is currently estimated at over Rs 20,000 crore per annum.

Giving details of the new venture Bandopadhyay said that India is currently having 60 million internet users, around 10.8 million of whom are already shopping online. Moreover, the number of internet users is expected to double in the next 30 months.

Reliance Money’s new venture will be pitted directly against the shopping portals of ebay, futurebazaar, indiatimes, rediff, and sify, among others. Many others like TV18, which already owns a 24 hours home shopping channel and price checking site called compareindia.com, are expected to enter the fast growing ‘click and buy’ retail business. Even newspapers like Business Standard and Indian Express operate shopping section on their news portals.

Although Anil Ambani has refused to make a comment, the suit is believed to have been filed about a month back.

Mukesh Ambani’s RIL according to media reports  has, however, denied the news saying that a suit of this magnitude will attract a court fee of Rs 100 crore.

In a massive “inclusive growth” initiative, first of its kind in Indian corporate history, which would provide employment to 50,000 rural youth, the company has decided to extend its rural reach this fiscal by setting up 10,000 franchisee outlets in 5,165 of the 5,645 tehsils (talukas) of the country, according to a Hindu Business Line report.

Reliance Money has already idenfied and appointed franchisee partners in 1,001 tehsils with the help of Rural Relations, a rural consumer-focused organisation. Reliance ADAG expects to garner 10 to 20% of its total business through this rural thrust.

“We will not adopt a plain vanilla financial services approach, but prepare an area-specific basket of products,” said Sudip Bandopadhyay, Director and CEO, Reliance Money. This basket of products, among others, could include insurance plans for cattle, crop, bullock cart and tractor, term insurances (Rs 25 to Rs 50 pay out for a year’s coverage), and Systematic Investment Plans (monthly installment of Rs 50 to100).

While the company has already established its presence in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, it is now expanding into Uttarachal, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Orissa.