A Passage for India
Promotion comes of age online and on the street. India is crazy for the Internet. Online marketing was the buzz at the country’s first-ever promotion marketing conference, hosted in Aug-ust by Delhi agency Kidstuff Promos & Events and Brand Equity, the marketing section of the country’s Economic Times. The two-day conference covered topics from trade relations to child psychology, but all included Internet applications.
More than 30 million Indians will have Internet access by 2004, mostly via cable TV or computer kiosks similar to long-distance phone services in each town. While India has only four million computers and 22 million telephones, 34 million homes have cable TV, a figure that is growing eight percent per year, reports The Times of India. That will be a boon for the country’s emerging promotions marketing business, now estimated at $250 million and growing 50 percent a year.
Promotion is just coming of age as a strategic discipline here. There are about 200 promotion agencies doing regional work; most national ad agencies are dabbling in promotion, and event companies – concert promoters, in essence – are adding promotion services. Kidstuff claims to be the only national promo shop, and it’s a subsidiary of electronics manufacturer Olympia. (Kidstuff started as a Tinker Toys factory, then added other premiums and in recent years began handling full campaigns.)
As marketers here test their wings online, they continue to hone classic street events, sports sponsorships, and in-school campaigns. PepsiCo India and Hindustan Lever’s Sunsilk shampoo tied for Gold in the first All India Promo Awards, presented in August. Pepsi’s campaign tapped cricket fans’ World Cup fever with an under-the-cap sweepstakes awarding a trip to the World Cup, TVs, and other gear. Multi-packs carried trading cards of top players, and fans collected points to get gear such as T-shirts and button covers. Supporting TV spots starred wildly popular player Sachin Tendulkar. The campaign, which ran for two months, went from idea to execution in six weeks, says Lloyd Mathias, Pepsi vp-marketing.
Many promos leverage cricket, still a national passion despite recent game-fixing scandals. Cookie maker Brittania had fans collect wrappers to swap for a trivia booklet and sweepstakes gamepiece for a trip to London to play with a national star. (The booklet included the tale of a lion stealing an in-play ball during an India/Kenya game; the runner scored 14 times before a replacement ball was found.)
Lever won Gold for a Sunsilk launch that gave new meaning to “free sample.” Newspaper and outdoor ads sent women to salons for a free shampoo with the invitation, “Take the First Step with Us,” to play off the brand’s “First Step” tagline. Stylists in 65 salons in five cities gave 18,143 shampoos and got new-client leads in exchange. MTV won two awards, Wackiest Promotion and Best Event, the latter for The World’s Longest Dance Party.
School programs are on the rise, with educational packets that include small games, diaries, and essay or coloring contests. Aquafresh toothpaste, Horlick’s milk flavorings, Brittania cookies, and cable TV networks distribute items in schools, many via Kidstuff. “Those go in their backpacks, then moms see them when they check their children’s schoolwork,” says senior manager K. Subramaniam. Marketers are careful to maintain an educational tone and keep distribution infrequent.
Event marketing is popular, even when it’s not legal. General Motors had a very limited budget to launch its Opal mid-sized sedan, so it went guerrilla by plastering streets and sidewalks with banners that said only “Achtung, baby!” in a nod to Opal’s German engineering. Wild postings aren’t legal, but GM didn’t sweat it. “Where the government complained, we paid a fine. The rest we just left,” says the marketing director, who planned to follow up by stickering competitor cars and paying balloon vendors to give away “Achtung, Baby!” balloons.
This summer, Ford India launched the mid-size Ikon with a six-city go-carting (called “josh karting”) competition that pitted Ford owners against India’s only professional Formula One driver, Narain Karthikeyan, and Ford India president Phil Spender. All Ford Escort owners got a mailed invitation; the first 100 to respond in each city got to compete, and the rest came to watch. Kidstuff handled.
India’s promotion industry is accelerating – on the road and the Super Highway.
