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The meteorological department has just forecast a normal monsoon. While the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and India Inc. will be a relieved lot, custodians of the brands featured in this story will not. For them, the longer and hotter the summer, the better. Because these are categories that need the heat, these are categories, which have a common sales pattern that shows a summer peak, which towers over the rest of the year like a Colussus.
This is a season of many wars, the most visible being the mother of all marketing wars: Coke vs. Pepsi. But there are other battles, not as visible, which are being waged simultaneously. Each battle will throw up winners and losers, heroes and villains. If the wars were always difficult, each year increases the complexities. Media is more fragmented than ever before; the consumer’s decision-making process more difficult to analyse. Liberalisation’s child, competition, is another villain. There are no monopolies left, each category is witness to a multiplayer game. Multinational brands pitted against national brands pitted against regional brands.
And while the brands face off against each other, so do their advertising agencies. Account executives tot up huge snack and late night conveyance bills as they race against time to produce the ever-increasing point of purchase material in time while the creative directors are stuck in studios finalising the edits. The media operations department will be cancelling and rescheduling as strategies change and creatives are either rejected or approved. And business heads will be worrying about timely collections and possible INS and IBF payment problems.
There’s more to the wars than just the products and the communications — distribution, too, will play a decisive role. This is a season when new media will play a larger role than envisaged even a couple of years ago; when short code phone numbers and e-mail will carry the message to prospects. A season when the consumer will be bombarded with promotional offers, with sampling, with discounts. By the time the consumer sees the end of August, he would have had chances to win holidays abroad, cars, consumer durables, dates with celebrities and even hard cash.
Reputations will be made and unmade, bottom-lines will go up and down. Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the Summer.
Impact reports from the battlefront... on Beverages, Fashion, Children’s Channels, Air-Conditioners, Ice Creams and Holidays
Beverages: Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot
The aerated and non-aerated drink brands are literally leaving no stone unturned while gearing up for the peak season. With the mercury level rising, the marketers are hoping for a better sales performance this summer season thinking that consumers will buy more of these brands to quench their thirst. New flavours, aggressive marketing and innovative advertising will drive the sales as price cuts are not the opted route.
The action in the cola space seemed to have broken new ground with both the cola majors taking detours from their trademark ad trends. The first to break through the summer heat was an early Saif Ali Khan posing as Khufia and Aishwarya’s ‘Ash Cash’ aimed at notching up pre-summer sales for Pepsi and Coke respectively. This time, they have dabbled into ‘hat-ke’ campaigns (for their flagship brands) of ‘Bubbly’ from Pepsi and ‘Manno Bhabhi’ from Coca-Cola. The PepsiCo spokesperson states, “For us, the summer season starts early and that is why we start with the promotional activities by February. This helps us to take an early opening in the market, be noticed and create buzz.” Coca-Cola India is looking at adding capacities this year after having anticipated increase in demand. And going by the PepsiCo’s last year’s growth rate of around 20 per cent, the giants want to play safe as they decline to provide their sales projections.
Coca-Cola India has aggressive plans for its other brands Diet Coke, Thums Up, Fanta, Limca, Sprite, Maaza, Sunfill, Georgia, Georgia Gold, Kinley and Kinley Club Soda — be it new spoof ads or Everest challenges of sort. On the other hand, Pepsico has lined up activities to concentrate on ensuring a variety of different choices for consumers; tie ups for branded ice tea; and the likes for its entire line up of offerings, which includes Mirinda Orange, Mirinda Lemon, Mountain Dew, 7UP and Aquafina.
To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated April 25-May 1, 2005