Marketing review

Vikas Gupta named Coke's new marketing chief
Coca-Cola India has appointed Vikas Gupta as the vice-president — marketing, for the India division covering Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives.

Earlier with Brooke Bond and Procter &Gamble Gupta has extensive marketing experience is basically a fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) marketing professional. He joined the Coca-Cola India marketing team in 1994 and held various portfolios till 1999, when he moved to the parent company's marketing team at Atlanta until his return to India last year.

Gupta is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur specialising in marketing and finance.

Gupta will assume his new responsibilities at Coca-Cola India from March 1.

Haier launches mobile handsets
The Indian subsidiary of the Chinese home appliances conglomerate, the Haier group, has launched mobile phones in India priced in the range of Rs3,654 to Rs14,940 range. The most expensive phone in the range comes equipped with a 300K pixel camera and a dicta-phone.

The company hopes to sell around 500,000 handsets this year and acquire a considerable market share by the end of the year.

The products would be sourced from Haier's manufacturing facility in China which has a capacity to produce 15 million handsets per year.

Haier has manufacturing facilities for home appliances and consumer electronics in 13 countries including the US, Europe, West Asia, Africa and South Asia.

RPG Retail launches Spencer's Hypermarket
RPG has started using its Spencer's brand name for its hypermarkets and had launched the Spencer's Hypermarket brand six months back. The first Spencer's opened in Visakhapatnam last year in association with Phoenix Logistics.

RPG Retail's other two stores in Hyderabad and Mumbai, known as Giant Hypermarket have also changed their name to Spencer's.

Infomedia ties up with Ringier for trade magazines
Infomedia India, publishers of business directories and trade and consumer magazines, has entered into an alliance with the Switzerland-based media company Ringier Group to publish five trade magazines in India.

Ringier is now one of the largest publishing houses in China having published 21 titles in the last six years.

In India, the company will publish five titles in 2005 in sectors like plastics, packaging, food processing, textiles and pharmaceuticals.

Ringier Group is based in Hong Kong and will also help Infomedia India secure international advertising.

Infomedia India publishes magazines like Auto Monitor, AV Max, Chemical World, Better Photography, and Auto Max.

Nokia chosen CII Brand of the Year
The Confederation of Indian Industries has named mobile phone brand Nokia as the 'CII brand of the year,' at the CII Brand Summit.

The 10 finalists, apart from Nokia, included Titan, Eveready, Dabur Chyawanprash, Indane, Fair & Lovely, Lux, Pond's, Rin Advanced and Pond's Body Lotion from among 135 entries.

Nokia was judged by brand consulting firm Vertebrand as among the 10-most valuable brands in the world. For the CII award, too, Vertebrand was involved in the process of evaluating the brands before short-listing the 10 finalists.

SriLankan Airlines woos Indian passengers
SriLankan Airlines is wooing Indian travellers with low airfares. It has announced a 50 per cent tariff cut to major global destinations, launching a two-week promotional campaign.

Bookings can be made between February 28 and up to March 31 2005.

According to the offer a return ticket to London would cost just Rs14,190 while a return ticket to Tokyo was put at Rs18,820, Colombo (Rs,870), Male (Rs8,000), Singapore (Rs9,880), Kuala Lumpur (Rs9,880), Bangkok (Rs8,540) and Hong Kong (Rs11,560).

However, the tickets have a one-month validity.

Star Plus plans to resurrect KBC
Star Plus is planning to give the popular game show, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) a fresh lease of life.

The new series will have new features, double the prize money and, of course, Amitabh Bachchan as the host.

The new series will have 85 episodes to which Amitabh Bachchan is committed. Though the format of the game show will be more-or-less similar to the earlier version, the channel is looking at making it as interactive for viewers at home.

Tetra Pak ropes in Tabu as brand ambassador
Hindi film actress Tabu has been taken on as the new brand ambassador for Tetra Pak India. She will be featuring in the latest Tetra Pak commercials created by Leo Burnett, promoting freshness and purity of Ultra Heat Treatment (UHT) Milk.

The new Tetra Pak ad campaign, comprising both TVCs and print commercials, will be unveiled this week.

Tetra Pak began operations in India as a 100-per cent subsidiary of Tetra Pak International, a Tetra Laval Company, in 1997.

Perfetti to bring in more products
Perfetti van Melle India, the Indian subsidiary of Italian confectionery giant is looking at a 10 per cent sales growth to become a Rs 500-crore company in India this year.

The company plans to launch up to 10 new product launches including some global brands like Vivident and Vigorsol sugar-free chewing gums, more varieties in the éclair segment and new bubble gum variety.

The company's sales grew 15 per cent last year and it has already set aside between Rs150 and Rs200-crore investment in the country over the next two years in marketing, brand building and increasing manufacturing capacity.

— Compiled by Mohini Bhatnagar