Whirlpool India has set aside a corpus of Rs70 crore for marketing and advertising for the current year, and will spend Rs20 crore of this during the current festive season.

The company will spend around Rs45 lakh on its ''magic chalao, dream home sajao'' offer during the festivities which would provide providing 30 home-makeovers that would be won by customers on the purchase of Whirlpool products.

Augmenting its product line, Whirlpool has launched products in two of its major categories, refrigerators and microwave ovens, and is looking to position itself as a ''complete home appliances company''. Targeting women, Whirlpool plans to put in around $20-25 million over the course of the next 18 months to expand production capacity and other marketing activities.

According to Shantanu Das Gupta, vice president for marketing, Whirlpool India, the company will extend the popularity of its refrigerators to all other categories such as microwaves, washing machines, and air conditioners. He said the company was anticipating around 20 per cent growth in sales during the Diwali season, as compared to the same season last year.