Top brands spend Rs 150 cr to start 2008 with a bang

KOLKATA: It comes as no surprise that branding innovations around the New Year theme have caught the fancy of Indian marketers. Global consumer goods majors like LG, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Samsung, Canon and Haier appear to have explored this to the hilt. The mission is three-pronged — connecting with a consumer’s festive mood, cutting through the ad clutter, and in turn, gaining incremental sales revenue.

Small wonder, ad agency circles also estimate that nearly Rs 125-150 crore of New Year-driven promotional strategies have been woven around this year. LG Electronics has just kicked-off a Rs 6-crore campaign executed by Lowe India built around New Year resolutions.

“Since we are re-positioning LG brand in India as a more youthful and aspirational one, we decided to run the campaign to target younger contemporary consumers. In Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai, we will extend the campaign till mid-January,” says LG Electronics India director (sales & marketing) V Ramachandran.

Motorola is running a promotion for its MotoYuva, which includes Christmas goodies or an opportunity to party in Goa. “The year-end festive mood is the ideal time to integrate a product’s propositions with the target consumer. It then becomes a great opportunity to build the brand association,” feels Motorola’s director marketing (India & South West Asia) Lloyd Mathias.