Marketing review

25 Jun 2004

Café Coffee Day brews expansion plan
Kolkata: Café Coffee Day, the retail chain of the Rs250-crore Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, is planning to set up another 42 outlets in India and 50 outlets abroad.

The company is planning a total outlay of Rs18 crore on this expansion, of which Rs 10 crore would be spent on its overseas expansion plan and Rs8 crore in India. All the new outlets are to be established by the end of this year.

The overseas locations identified by the company for setting up outlets include cities in the Mediterranean region, East Europe, West Asia and South East Asia and China.

The total turnover of Café is expected to cross the Rs100-crore mark soon. The proposed expansion plans are being executed through internal accruals.

L'Oreal, Godrej top spenders on hair dye ads
Chennai: A study by AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research says the L'Oreal group and Godrej Consumer Products were the biggest ad spenders in the hair dye category and together accounted for 71 per cent of the advertising expenditures on TV last year.

L'Oreal accounted for 38 per cent of the ad expenditure while Godrej accounted for 33 per cent. The third biggest spender, Hygienic Research accounted for 18 per cent of the advertising expenditures in the category while Henna Export Corporation and CavinKare were fourth and fifth, with shares of 5.5 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively.

The total TV ad spends on the hair dye category in 2003 were over Rs143 crore, higher than Rs142 crore in 2002. L'Oreal's brands dominated the list of top 10 brands in the category, with Garnier Color Naturals, Nutrisse Hair Colour Mask and L'Oreal Excellence Cream in the first place and its other brands occupied the fourth and fifth positions on the list. Super Vasmol 33, from Hygienic Research, was in second place while Godrej Powder was at third.

Godrej's Color Soft, Kesh Kala Tel and Herbal Hair Dye occupied the sixth, seventh and ninth positions, respectively. Black Rose Kali Mehendi at eight and Indica Hair Dye at ten were the others in the list.

HLL to overhaul Lux, to introduce more products
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever is restructuring the Rs750-crore Lux brand. For starters it is introducing Lux International Bodywash Liquid, and has more additions to the existing portfolio in the pipeline, including a Lux bath gel and other bathing variants in the near future.

Right now four mass segment variants of Lux are available in the market besides a single variant of Lux International.

HLL is planning to introduce several new products within Lux at different price points. After conducting extensive research across a number of cities for the last one year on consumer brand perception and changing consumer needs, HLL is overhauling the brand.

According to the company, Lux International as a moisturising soap would continue after the overhaul but might have a different name.

The company is also planning to strengthen the existing Lux bar (meant for the mass segment). Lux had 18 per cent of the personal wash market share last year and is currently the largest soap brand in the market, closely followed by Lifebuoy.

HM offers 3-year warranty on Lancers
Hyderabad: Hindustan Motors has announced the Lancer Freedom initiative, which comprises a three-year and 50,000 km extended warranty offer for its Mitsubishi Lancer model. It expects to increase its sales by 20 per cent this year with the recent launches.

According to the company, independent segment-wise research on the maintenance costs of vehicles has indicated that on an average a mid-size premium car buyer spends about Rs36,000 over three years on maintaining his car. With the Lancer Freedom initiative, the company enables its customers to enjoy this superior product offering while saving on these costs.

Hindustan Motors is aiming to increase its sales from 4,000 cars to 5,000 next year, an increase of about 20 per cent over last year based on the launch of three new models, including the Invex.

Mother Dairy extends Safal brand
New Delhi: Mother Dairy has launched packaged fruit juices under the Safal brand. This is nearly 20 years after it launched its 'Safal' brand of processed foods.

Safal fruit juices are being launched in four variants and will be available in one litre tetrapacks. They will be launched first in Delhi and are likely to be available on retail shelves across the country within the next fortnight.

Mother Dairy's entry into the Rs110-crore packaged fruit juice market in the country will pitch it directly in competition with the two top fruit brands in the country Real and Tropicana.

Mother Dairy said Safal would tap into the high health conscious consumers in metros. The fruit variants now being launched are orange, mixed fruit, grape and the unique orange-apple variant. Thachil said the variants were launched based on consumer preference surveys.

Apart from fruit juices Mother Dairy has other plans on the anvil including a foray into ultra-heat treated (UHT) milk, ghee and paneer and perhaps even ready-to- eat meals under the Mother Dairy brand in the near future.

Mother Dairy has already launched a dairy whitener in the north-eastern market, while its butter business was kicked off last year.

The Rs150-crore UHT milk market is dominated by co-operatives like the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), Vijaya and Saras, with only Amrit Vanaspati and Nestle representing the private sector.

Safal, has a turnover of Rs140 crore at present and is the market leader in the frozen peas category with over 60 per cent market share nationally.

Pushpinder Singh of O&M quits; to join Ambience
Mumbai: Pushpinder Singh, senior creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, is leaving the agency after nine years to join Ambience Publicis as national creative director.

Earlier with Trikaya Grey and Leo Burnett, Singh has already proved his talent by being a regular winner at the Abby awards, not to mention bagging the Golden Lion at Cannes.

Singh has the responsibility of being the creative head for the accounts of Ambience Publicis, unlike in O&M where he dealt with only a part of its creative work.

At O&M, he handled the accounts of Close Up, Tata Safari and British Petroleum, among others. At Ambience Publicis, he will have the onus of dealing with mega accounts such as that of Vicks, Lakme and Marico's Parachute brand.

Rediffusion bags Space TV account
Mumbai: Rediffusion DY&R has bagged the account of the Tata-Star DTH venture — Space TV. Officials said that the agency had bagged only the creative account while Space TV was yet to decide on its media buying agency.

Space TV is understood to have got all the government clearances for starting the Rs1,600-crore direct-to-home venture in India.

The venture under the name Space TV had been pending clearance from various government agencies since September last year when the promoters submitted the proposal to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Vikram Kaushik has recently been appointed COO of Space TV, having moved from Colgate Palmolive.

Whirlpool targets the mass market with new launches
New Delhi: Whirlpool (India) is moving towards the mass market with an array of new launches. The new launches comprise a range of single-door frost-control refrigerators available in 200 litres, 230 litres and 260 litres and priced in the range of Rs10,600 to Rs12,750. The company has big hopes from the category.

The range comes with Whirlpool's sixth sense technology and has special sensors that maintain the right level of frost in the freezer by automatically defrosting any excessive frost formation.

Compared to the frost-free segment, the prices of frost-control fridges are lower by about Rs500 to Rs1,000 depending on the capacity.

Besides this new line, the company has also upgraded and launched new products in its existing range of direct-cool and frost-free fridges.

Apart from the new launches, the company has also lined up communications to support the brand and its products. The company has earmarked 5 per cent of its total revenue for advertisements.

Yahoo! pre-empts Google with 100mb offer
New Delhi: Yahoo's 100 megabytes of free e-mail has come just in time. With just a few months to go before Google's Gmail becomes a free service, Yahoo's offer will prevent a mass shift.

Yahoo's announcement comes a month after search firm Google said it would launch a free e-mail service called Gmail that offers 1 gigabyte or 1,000 MB of storage, considerably more space than free versions of Yahoo Mail and Microsoft's Hotmail.

It has also reversed the trend in the short run wherein internet companies had started making people pay for additional storage space in e-mails.

Currently, Yahoo is at an advantageous position, since it has a huge subscriber base that is unlikely to shift now with adequate storage space in their present Yahoo account.

India: second most attractive destination for global retailers
New Delhi: India has emerged as the second most attractive investment destination for global retailers, according to management consultant AT Kearney's '2004 Global Retail Development Index'. Earlier India was in the fifth position.

An annual ranking of retail investment attractiveness among 30 emerging markets, the index has Russia in first place for the third year while China comes after India, and other East European and South East Asian countries dominate the top 10.

AT Kearney also advises global retailers to enter the Indian market quickly.

The global consultants say, "India is at a stage where China was about 15 years ago. The lack of consolidation and modern retail concepts in India present great opportunities for global retailers ready to enter this year." The advice comes despite restrictive foreign direct investment rules and regulations preventing foreign ownership of retailers in India.

— Compiled by Mohini Bhatnagar