Marketing review

Rasna targets the youth with mocktails
Rasna, which claims leadership position in the juices segment, is offering signature mocktail recipes along with its Rasna Juc-fit juices range. The mocktails titled Tropical Breeze, Island Spice, April Lady are in line with the company's evolving marketing strategy targeting the youth.

The company has entered into an exclusive tie-up with Café Coffee Day to vend the mocktails. The recipe book will be given away as complimentary with every one litre pack of Juce-fit.

The company's products are available at over 17 lakh outlets across the country. It has also tied up with Sahara Airlines and Indian Railways to serve the drink on board.

HLL goes in for live hoardings
Hindustan Lever is planning to go in for a live hoarding to grab eyeballs for its flagship coffee brand, Bru. As part of its `Evening to remember' customer activation programme for the brand, the company will set up a "live hoarding" — models sitting atop a large hoarding at a prime location in Mumbai city.

Customers selected through a scratch card method and their families will be treated to a meal at a five-star hotel. The promo will run in the city for the next few months. The models will sit atop the hoarding for four-five hours in the evening for a week. HLL aims to step up Bru's market share from the existing 45 per cent using a slew of marketing strategies aimed at specific target groups.

Intel offers channel partner programme
Intel has launched a Software Channel Partner Programme, under which it would offer training to its resellers.

Resellers will receive a complete sales and marketing support package as well as enhanced technical support. The company plans to host workshops on topics such as multi-core parallelism and high performance computing.

DishTV launches movie-on-demand
Zee Network's direct-to-home service DishTV has launched its movie-on-demand service and has entered into an agreement with Buena Vista International Television - Asia Pacific, the television distribution arm of the Walt Disney Company, for the service.

With this facility Zee's 1.5-million subscribers will be able to access movies of their choice on their television sets within ten minutes of ordering a film. Each movie will cost Rs50. English movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax across all genres will be available through DishTV's service. The movie can be ordered through sending an SMS, through phone or by logging on to www.dishtvindia.in.

Max New York Life offers Life Invest
Max New York Life has launched Life Invest, a flexible unit-linked investment plan that gives customers the flexibility to manage their financial needs, including protection, investment and liquidity.

It offers the customer a choice from two death benefits — level insurance cover and increasing insurance cover.

BSNL offers customers a Diwali bonanza
In a Diwali bonanza of sorts Bharat Sanchar Nigam has reduced STD rates by 60 per cent from Rs2.40 per minute to Re 1 per minute. Tariffs of local calls have also been brought down from Rs1.20 to Re 1 for a three-minute call.

The move is part of BSNL's One India plan, which allows subscribers to make calls to any part of the country at Re1. The new tariff plan will automatically be available to all subscribers who currently pay Rs180 per month as rental and those who had already subscribed to One India Plan.

As per BSNL's records, 1.16 crore subscribers will benefit from the reduced tariffs immediately.

Subscribers on other tariff plans will have to apply separately to get the benefit. About 4 lakh subscribers who have already taken the One India plan will benefit as BSNL has dropped the monthly rental from Rs225 to Rs180 and increased the number of free calls from 25 to 50.

The new tariffs will be applicable from November 1. Other fixed line operators including Tata Teleservices, MTNL and Bharti Airtel are also looking to revise their tariffs.

Arvind Brands plans revamp of brands
Arvind Brands is increasing focus on its brands like Excalibur, Ruf n Tuf, Flying Machine and New Port and on the cards is a complete overhaul of the brand image and positioning of these brands. While the company has begun the revamp exercise with Excalibur, it is evaluating various possibilities for its other brands.

Arvind Brands has relaunched Excalibur as a lifestyle brand with complete wardrobe solutions for young executives from being just a functional men's formal shirts brand. It has expanded its portfolio to include knits, jackets, T-shirts, blazers and suits under the categories of `Business Hours', `After Hours', `Vogue', `Royale' and `Vitals.'

In March this year, the company opened its first Excalibur standalone exclusive outlet. Today, there are 40 Excalibur exclusive outlets in the country. Plans are on to have 100 outlets by the end of this fiscal, which will be a mix of company-owned, and franchisee stores.

It has signed up design firm JHP, London, to design its new stores and provide a different retail experience to consumers. The first of the stores designed by JHP will be opened in Bangalore soon, followed by Delhi.

Although plans for the other three brands have not been finalized Arvind Brands hopes to replicate the Excalibur model and go for a total change in positioning across various segments such as consumers, media and retail experience.

Flying Machine and New Port would continue as a mass premium and mass brand respectively. The differentiation will be more in the retail experience and customer-connect by targeting the youth more.

Assam Co to unveil 2 tea brands
Assam Co plans to launch two CTC packet tea brands immediately and two more later. One of these would be a relaunch of its old brand Assam Gold.

Cheetah and Jumbo are the two brands that will be initially launched though a test marketing exercise. The targeted sales are 150,000 kg.

To start with Jumbo and Cheetah will be marketed in West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. Except tea caddies, which will be placed at the top end of the market, all other brands will be CTC tea.

Hero Honda launches CBZ variant X-treme
Hero Honda has launched a new variant of its 150cc motorcycle CBZ, pricing the base variant at Rs 54,500 (ex-showroom Delhi). The company plans to launch another bike after the new `CBZ X-treme' that would be positioned in the premium segment next year.

The company said that the premium bike market, comprising 150cc models and those above, was around 600,000 units or 10 per cent of the total motorcycle market. The self-start variant of CBZ X-treme has been priced at Rs56,500 (ex-showroom Delhi). Both the variants have disc brakes and alloy wheel as standard fitments.

Tommy Hilfiger to expand retail presence
The Rs 45-crore Premium lifestyle brand Tommy Hilfiger is ready to expand its presence in India. The brand is targeting to open 20-25 flagship stores and reach a turnover of Rs150 crore in two years and is also in talks with key department stores such as Pantaloons and Shoppers' Stop to expand its retail presence.

The company currently has nine flagship stores across Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chandigarh and is looking to enter cities like Pune, Ahmedabad and Kochi.

In India, the Murjani Group is the master licensee for the Tommy Hilfiger brand. The group also has a sub-licensing relationship with several Indian companies for the various categories of Tommy Hilfiger — Arvind Murjani Brands for apparel, Titan Industries for watches, Baccarose for perfume, Eastman Clothing for underwear, Sierra Industries for footwear and Sterling Metaplast for eyewear.

Cottons plans e-biz site
Cottons, the branded textile wear from Century Textiles, plans to launch a one-stop online shop for its products by next month.

At present the company's products are available on the Internet through Ebay.com and Rediff.com. The company's site, www.cottonsbycenturyonline.com will be launched for its e-business. Cottons will also be launching two new brands — a denim and a women's wear brand based on ethnic and western designs.

Amul launches new ice cream flavour
The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has launched a new brand of Amul ice cream, known as `Sweet Heart Chocolate', priced at Rs 70 for a one-litre family pack.

The `innovative' ice cream has chocolate in the shape of heart at the centre on a slab of vanilla ice cream and come packed without mixing each other.