The flurry of activity in the FMCG sector last week appears to augur well. Whether it is the acquisition of Balsara businesses by Dabur India Ltd or the global acquisition of Gillette Company by Procter & Gamble, industry experts feel that consolidation will catalyse growth and ultimately help the end consumer.
And, you thought comic books were merely fun and games and meant for some light reading. But for one set of marketers, comics are serious stuff through which they hope to hook a young audience to their brands. Pizza chains to fruit juice marketers, all have come to believe in the power of the comic book to mesmerise children, while putting across a subtle message about their brand.
Brand building is not just about advertising and marketing anymore. In today's scenario where consumers are bombarded with several brands, need of the hour is to instil the brand into the hearts and minds of the consumers. It requires a high brand recall and thus the strong brand foundation is the new mantra.
Though the paints category print advertising remained steady in 2004, it has shown an impressive 120 per cent growth since 2000. Asian Paints turned out to be the top advertiser in 2004.
Tupperware is a direct-selling company where both the dealer and manager demonstrate the products at parties. The company has supported this retailing method through initiatives to make the brand visible where people are. With retail becoming more advanced in India, Tupperware is also planning to be present in shopping malls, says Asha Gupta, GM, who heads Tupperware’s marketing in India.
Strengthening its Ad Sales team further, MCCS (Media Content and Communications) has decided on Aaj Tak’s Avinash Pandey to head, STAR News’ Ad Sales function for the North and East region.
Reality shows are becoming a popular genre of television programming. Yet another innovation in this domain will be seen shortly with Zee Business's reality show 'Harish Arora Ka Budget'. The month-long show revolves around how a very real common man, Harish Arora, manages his monetary requirements and how the Budget will affect him.
Tennis is the next big game for Adidas India. And Indian sport’s new pin up girl, Sania Mirza, is certainly drawing everybody’s attention. The company, which has been supporting Sania for ten years, hints at a probability of extending the support to a long-term contract, but it all depends on Sania’s nod.
“Anything Karega” is the brand message that Ford Fusion has chosen for capturing the spirit of the car, and it certainly has captured the eyeballs. The company plans to sell 500 cars this month and aim to do 1,000 a month by March 2005.
Abraham Thomas (Vice-President, Sales) at MTV has resigned from his post. A formal announcement for the same was made within MTV, around three days back. As of now, the channel is yet to decide on the replacement for Thomas.
Sahara's Head of distribution, Raj Mohan Nair has decided to put in his papers. He will be joining Aaj Tak as the channel's distribution head.
Good copywriters are hard to find these days as visual imagery is holding centrestage in advertising. Long copy is fast disappearing from the advertising landscape. And, sadly, copywriters who can transverse between English and Hindi are a diminishing species, is the view of some advertising experts.
If you look at the traditional media, whether it is the newspapers or the print media or now TV and radio, you see that most of them are actually getting popular in regional languages – both in terms of revenue and growth potential. What we believe is that in India, if technology and internet as a medium, or even wireless as a medium which is mobile MMS or mobile SMS, have to reach beyond a certain number, you have no choice but to develop in local languages.