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With this brand strapped to the mast, the white spirits ship won't be content passing unnoticed. By Alokesh Bhattacharyya Know of brands in the shadows waiting for their time? Bacardi is an interesting example. It was launched in India back in 1998 as a white spirits brand (it's a white rum, actually) at a time everybody tuned in to the category was watching Smirnoff---and its Tarsem Singh commercial. More than five years later, Bacardi is the evident mast-carrier for white spirits---a sub-category of liquor that has virtually crept its way into young Indian urban mindspace. And it's not disappearing anytime soon, so smooth has the entry been. Bacardi-Martini India Ltd deserves credit for a well-focused strategy executed with subtle finesse. Tactically speaking too, the brand has made some pretty smart moves. The launch of Bacardi Breezer, a sub-brand of ready-mixed drinks, went some way towards smoothening the entry path to white spirits as a sub-category. Next on the agenda: market expansion. With characteristic brand patience, of course. Bacardi must not lose the exclusivity that has come to be associated with it. "At present," says Shoban Roy, President, Bacardi-Martini India, "we are looking at our core target audience and are addressing it through our marketing activities. The ripple effect will move to smaller cities/towns, but it is going to take time." Slow and cool does it. Slow, sure and cool. "The core target audience is today's youth in metros and main towns in India," says Roy, "We have constantly addressed our core target audience through television communication and through our brand properties." With white spirits equated with Bacardi, the brand, it's the entire sub-category's momentum that will help swell volumes. That's when it becomes a self-propulsion brand---the dream of every marketer who thinks long-term. So, what's Bacardi up to? Blasting its way ahead, quietly. The 'bat' icon has made its way around the airwaves, "calling all creatures of the night". The idea is to look the "nocturnal party animal" straight in the eyes, and relieve this creature of all performance pressures of high-frenzy urban living. The air campaign is supported by ground
efforts revolving around the brand's own selection of music---in alliance
with Virgin Records. "The music content," says Roy, "has
been always international and we were the first to bring down
international DJs and followed it up with the official tour of the
Ministry of Sound (one of the top clubs in the world) from UK and
Superstar DJs like Judge Jules last year." If Bacardi Blast is a much-envied property in liquor circles, Bacardi Nightshift is on its way there. This is a series of parties being hosted by Bacardi-Martini across the country for high performers in assorted professional groups. The proposition: unwind in a highly energised atmosphere. Unwind---and be who you really are. The proposition is finding receptivity. Slowly. And slowly enough. After all, as the Dutch philosopher Erasmus put it, "It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is."
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