Marketing review

Absolut associates with fashion industry
New Delhi: Premium vodka brand, Absolut is associating with fashion, design and celebrities from various creative professionals from fields as diverse as hair styling and paper jewellery to fashion accessories.

Recently, Absolut associated with a leading hairstylist and accessory designer to present their creations at the `Mulit Cocktail Lounge' in Mumbai. According to Siddharth Banerji, director, Kyndal India, the `Mulit Cocktail Lounge' showcased an amalgamation of hair styling and paper accessories such as belts, necklaces, earrings etc by leading accessory designer, Vrinda Gokhale and trendy hairdos by hair stylist, Cory Walia.

The company has plans to take this initiative to other cities in India as well.

Pakistan to get a taste of Amul
Anand: Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) will soon be selling its products in Pakistan as relations between the two countries improve.

GCMMF will be replace15,000-20,000 tonnes of skimmed milk powder imported by Islamabad with cheaper fresh milk from India according to B M Vyas, managing director, GCMMF.

The foreign secretaries of the two countries are due to meet on June 27-28 to discuss a host of issues among which would be measures to boost trade.

At present Pakistani imports 712 items from India mostly chemicals, engineering goods, tyres and pharmaceuticals. India buys vegetables, dried fruit, leather, semi-precious and precious stones and cotton from Pakistan.

Analysts say Pakistan could open up to Indian imports and the removal of trade blocks could swell annual bilateral trade between the two nuclear-armed countries to almost $10 billion by 2010 from a paltry $232 million at present.

HLL reformulates its toothpaste strategy
Mumbai: HLL seems to be redoing its toothpaste strategy. Now it intends to stick to one mother brand and a single variant under the Lemon Mint flavour. In the past the company had Close-Up in two variants — Tingly Red and Eucalyptus Waves. In the recent past it has been withdrawing its variants and now its blue-coloured Eucalyptus Waves variant will also be off the shelves leading to the re-launch of its Tingly Red flavour as the mother brand with a three-in-one benefit.

According to company officials, the company has decided to withdraw the Close-Up variants and continue only with the Lemon Mint variant. These variants have not been sustainable with disproportionate shares compared to the huge media inputs required to support them. Last year, Close-Up discarded its Whitening variant.

Now in a fresh relaunch the mother brand has been incorporated with a new vitamin fluoride supported by a new campaign for the brand, harping on strong, whiter teeth and fresh breath.

The Pepsodent variants will however continue.

HLL's market share in toothpastes stands at 32.8 per cent with Close-Up at 15.6 per cent and Pepsodent at 17.2 per cent value share as per AC Nielsen

Tata AIG Life gets new logo, slogan
Mumbai: TATA AIG Life Insurance Company has got a brand new brand logo with the new corporate slogan, `A new look at life.'

The insurance company is also launching a new multimedia brand campaign for the company across television, press, outdoor, cinema and the Internet to support its new identity.

As a part of the `A new look at life', the upper and lower borders of the logo have been opened to reinforce the company's corporate ethos and philosophy of being an innovator. Tata AIG will enhance its capability of foresight to anticipate the future needs of prospective insurers at the same time considering their present needs.

The baseline of Tata AIG Life when it commenced operations in India on April 1, 2001, was `With You Always' depicting its commitment to take care of the insurance and financial needs of its customers.

Dabur lines up new products to spur growth; launches Coolers
Mumbai: Dabur Foods has launched a new-fruit based beverage, Coolers, that claims to 'cool from within.'

Coolers variants are available in traditional cooling recipes in a ready-to-drink format. The three variants are — aam panna, pomegranate (anar) and watermelon, while a fourth variant in jamun will follow soon.

With an investment of Rs12 crore, the new brand is a result of over a year's research into consumer needs and development of processing capabilities and parameters on the other.

Coolers in 1-litre packs priced at Rs50 and, for the pomegranate variant, Rs60, is the third launch by the company in the past two months, after Real Junior, launched last month, and the pioneering launch of the age-specific, Real Cranberry Nectar.

Coolers is available across the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and mini-metros such as Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Pune and smaller cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur, Nagpur and Surat. It is offered.

The media spend on the advertising campaign for the new drink, including Print and TV, is Rs5 crore.

Dabur Foods is entering new product areas including soups and tomato puree under the Hommade brand. to meet the Rs200-crore turnover target it has set for itself by 2006-07.

The company will launch Hommade tomato soup in liquid form (in cartons) by September this year , which will also be extended to tomato puree and coconut milk.

Company officials said Hommade brand grew by 28 per cent last year. Dabur's Real brand of fruit juices, has proved very successful contributing as much as 85 per cent to the company's Rs86 crore turnover last fiscal. Dabur's new fruity beverage brand Coolers has been priced about 15 per cent lower than Real as the drinks under Coolers contain only 20 per cent of fruit pulp against over 80 per cent in Real variants. 


HLL slashes Sunsilk Natural price by 15 percent
New Delhi: Hindustan Lever has again slashed prices by 7.5 percent to 15 per cent across pack sizes of its Sunsilk Natural brand. Only the price of the 40ml size has been retained at Rs10 and also the sachets at price points of 50 paise, Re1and Rs2.

Now the 125 ml pack for Rs50 has been converted into a 100ml pack at Rs37; the 250ml pack at Rs100 will now be 200ml at Rs70. The steepest cut has been effected in the 400ml pack size which will now cost Rs 25 less at Rs125.

Earlier HLL had slashed prices of its Clinic Plus brand by between 20 and 24 per cent while relaunching the brand in an improved formulation.

A month earlier, it had experimented with offering a 50 per cent discount by launching the buy-one-get-one-free offer for shampoos but then withdrew this offer when Sunsilk was relaunched in April.

The company has also decided to focus on economy pack size of Clinic Plus and will provide these pack sizes increased marketing and other support. The economy pack sizes are 25ml for Rs5 in Clinic Plus. This explains why the pack size remains unchanged even after the second round of price correction.

LG pushes handsets
New Delhi: LG Electronics is pushing its handsets hard. It is targeting to rope in 500 multi-brand mobile handset dealers to work as partners in its drive to push sales of its GSM handsets.

Already the company has taken on 150 retailers as LG Mobile Partners (LMPs) who have contributed around 10-15 per cent to total GSM sales. Once the initiative is in full swing, the company expects at least 50 per cent of its sales to come in from these 500 LMPs this year.

The company is targeting sales of 3 lakh handsets this year, 10 lakh next year and 20 lakh units in 2006

Between January and May 2004, LG has sold 1 lakh GSM units and is targeting a sale of 3 lakh handsets this year, increase it to 10 lakh next year and 20 lakh units in 2006. The targeted sale in value terms is Rs280 crore in 2004, Rs650 crore next year and Rs1,200 crore in 2006.

Siemens India launches refrigerators
New Delhi: The 6bn euro German consumer durables giant, Siemens Bosch, through it's distributor RBS Home Appliances is introducing a new range of refrigerators in the market based on the AgION technology.

RBS home appliances¸ earlier known as Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group (BSH), incorporated in 1997, as a wholly owned subsidiary of BSH Germany will market the refrigerators.

The Siemen's refrigerators range will be made available in 300 and 500 litres and will be priced at Rs31,000 and Rs44,990. Siemens does not offer smaller refrigerators in the 270 or 180 liters capacity.

RBS Home Appliances at present markets the entire range of Siemens washing machines and is the market leader in service apartment business, currently a growing industry in Mumbai and Bangalore.

RBS Home Appliances claims a market share of 15 percent in the front-loading segment of washing machines currently dominated by IFB. In the washing machine segment, BSH Group specialises only in front-loading products.

Bombay Dyeing launches new ad campaign
Mumbai: Bombay Dyeing is launching a massive campaign through the electronic and print media for its new range of products in the bed and bath linen and home towels segments. The company is coming out with 150 new designs in these segments, and will launch these on an all India basis.

Since this is the first campaign of the years the company is supporting it with a substantially increased budget. Officials said this campaign will reinforce the company's vision to hold the dominant position in the bed sheet and towel segments.

Samsung to sponsor popular sports to enhance brand viability
New Delhi: Samsung India Electronics (SIEL), is looking at sports sponsorship beyond cricket and Olympics and striking an association with some other popular games in India.

Globally, the company is involved with sporting events like equestrian, golf and the Asian Games. However, the company is not yet disclosing the sport and says the idea is under negotiation.

This year, the company was involved with two mega sporting events -the Samsung Cricket Cup (the India-Pakistan series) and now, the forthcoming Athens Olympics. The company is spending about 25 per cent of its total market budget on sports sponsorships.

The promotional strategy of Samsung for the Olympics consists of promoting the Olympic Torch Relay and inviting people to come ahead and cheer torchbearers along the route.

Samsung is also partnering with VISA Card for the latter's Olympic-related promotion between May 1 and June 25, whereby it is giving away Samsung mobile phones as gifts that can be won by consumers as part of the lucky draw.

— Compiled by Mohini Bhatnagar