Date:04/10/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/10/04/stories/2004100402790100.htm

Back Now, `health' is the promo tool to beat ban

P.T. Jyothi Datta

Mumbai , Oct. 3

SURROGATE advertisements have been the bane of health-related bans on liquor and tobacco products. Sports goods now bear cigarette brand names and apple juices sport the names of popular alcoholic beverages.

But using "health" as the promotional point to circumvent a health-related ban, it does not get more innovative than that! And that is precisely the strategy behind the Indage Group's estimated Rs 12 crore promotional plan to sell its wines.

The Rs 125-crore Indage Group is putting in place a two-pronged promotional strategy to develop the domestic wine market and sell its wines. "We are looking at image-building at one level, where we will air images of people being trendy when they are associated with grapes, consuming it. At the other level, we will talk on the health benefits of grapes, in terms of being good for the heart etc," said a company official familiar with the development.

Elaborating on how the consumer is expected to make the connection between grapes and Indage's wines, he said: "The image-building commercials will show people with Riviera grapes, for instance. Or the health-promos will show some other brand of grapes produced by us, even as we elaborate on the numerous health benefits of grapes." Riviera and Chantilli, for instance, are some of the wine brands in the company's product portfolio.

But Indage's branded grapes are not in the retail market, so will that not be an obvious surrogate promotion? "Our group company, Champagne Vineyards looks after vineyards and agriculture. So it is not like we do not have the product. We have branded grapes that are sold to other wineries in the country. It is business in the industrial or institutional segment," he defends.

The company has appointed advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to do the promotional campaigns, which are likely to be aired in another two months, he said. The image-building commercials will get of the blocks first, supported by more below-the-line promotional activity on the health-platform, he said.

But this is not the first time that an alcoholic beverage is trying to make a health pitch. More than a couple of years ago, beer manufacturers tried to hard-sell beer as a softer option to hard liquor.