Panasonic to pump in Rs 100 cr for festival season marketing

ATL will constitute 60 per cent of its total spends. The brand aims to go the whole hog in a 360-degree effort to capture market share.

Neha Saraiya | Delhi | September 13, 2011

With the festive season round the corner, Japanese consumer durable giant Panasonic ahs announced its new marketing initiatives. For the promotion of its new products, the company has earmarked a budget of Rs 100 crore for the festive season and plans to push further its consumer-insight based campaign “Dream comes true when Panasonic comes home”.

Among the new products set to hit the market are two new models in the Viera range of flat TVs and five variants of refrigerators in the G-series. It has also unveiled a new fully-loaded digital camera, LS5, at an affordable price of Rs. 4,950.

The campaign will aggressively tap the TV and print media. For the television campaign, the company has bought 15,000 spots for Viera, 9,000 for brand Panasonic, 2,500 for AC, and eight episodes of its sponsored reality show on Zee TV, 'Apka Sapna Hamara Apna'.

On the print side, the company has occupied space up to 280 slots for Viera, 35 for air-conditioners and refrigerators, 40 for washing machines and 30 for camera. Besides tapping the conventional forms of media, the company has also bought 15,000 spots on radio along with 50,000 spot for cinema advertising.

As a part of its ATL activities that constitutes around 60 per cent of the total marketing budget, the company will roll out two new TVCs of 60 and 30 seconds, respectively, featuring Dia Mirza, focusing on the theme of conservation of natural resources and heritage sites. Panasonic intends to work towards conservation of natural resources and heritage sites as part of promoting its eco-friendly products. Aiding its efforts will be the brand's eco-living ambassador Dia Mirza.

For BTL events, the company recently launched a nationwide campaign called 'Colors of life', under which it conducted an on-ground event in 21 cities to unveil its new range of direct cool refrigerators, ACs and digital cameras. Also, it will soon unveil a new reality show on MTV named 'Face of Beauty' that will target 15 malls and 21 colleges.

Commenting on the targets set, Manish Sharma, Director - Marketing & Sales, Panasonic India, said, “The main focus for us this time is to grow 100 per cent in the TV segment, and 130 per cent in the AC segment over last year. We are targeting a share of 30 per cent from the total sales of Rs 3,500 crore.”

Besides advertising, Panasonic has lined up various schemes for its channel partners including finance programmes and facilitation of working capital during the season.

Currently, the brand spends around 12 per cent of its revenues on advertising and promotions with 2-3 per cent going to digital and activations. It has two creative agencies on board, with Denstu handling the home appliances segment and Percept Hakuhudo taking care of consumer electronics. The media agency of the company is Allied Media.

It also has associations with a host of celebrities including Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Jacqueline Fernandez, Koel Mullik, Kajal Aggarwal and Dia Mirza for its products.

Neha@BestMediaInfo.com

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