ITV

Tag: Vikram Varma

  • Barbeque Nation to firm up mass media communication plans for fiscal 2015

    Barbeque Nation to firm up mass media communication plans for fiscal 2015

    BENGALURU:  Indian casual dining restaurant chain Barbeque Nation (BN) opened its 39 restaurant in Ahmedabad on 22 October. The chain has six restaurants in Bengaluru. A typical opening is preceded and followed for a while by radio jingles, outdoor billboards within the catchment areas of the new restaurant and print ads in mainline media in that city.

     

    So far, industry sources say that, the chain had no firm media plans or strategy for brand building. All that is going to change says BN India head of marketing Vikram Varma. The company plans to come up with marketing and brand building plans for fiscal 2015. While Varma could not disclose the ad and sales promotion budgets that BN will set aside since this is  still in progress, industry estimates peg  spends of restaurant chains at between 5- 8 per cent of revenue.

     

     “On an average, we serve about 400 customers per day per restaurant,” revealed Varma to www.indiantelevision.com at the ‘Pat Chapman Grills the World’ festive season experience at BN’s flagship Indiranagar, Bengaluru restaurant. “The average area of our restaurants is about 4000 square feet, and we spend anything upwards of Rs 2 crore for setting up a restaurant,” said Varma.

     

      “We find radio to be quite an effective medium, especially during a new launch or for an event such as the one by Pat Chatman. We use mainline print, because we find it a lot more effective, and at present haven’t allocated funds for culinary publications. We are also on social media, contact customers through SMS and direct emails. Generally we’ve found that a campaign in a city adds about 30 per cent new customers, while about 70 per cent are repeat customers,” informed Varma.

     

    BN closed last year with revenues of about Rs 270 crore, and is expected to close this fiscal at about Rs 300 crore – based on industry estimates, this pegs its ad spends at between Rs 15  crore to Rs 25 crore for FY-2016, figures that would tempt any agency to pitch for the account. Fisheye handles the creative duties for BN. The company does its own media buying.

     

     At the Pat Chapman Grills the World festival, Chef Chapman presents his marinades range from the British Yorkshire and Jamaican Jerk Marinades to the Spanish Valencia and Albuquerque Atomic Marinades. BN has taken Chapman’s festival to its various restaurants in NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

  • DDW to handle Rock.in’s creative duties

    MUMBAI: Online fashion portal Rock.in has awarded its creative duties to integrated agency Digital Driftwood (DDW).

    DDW account manager on the Rock.in business Firoz Merchant said, “We won the account after a multiagency pitch initiated in February and look forward to working on it in the online as well as offline space.”

    The agency will be in charge of the brand‘s online advertising, offline BTL activities and advertising through mainstream mediums like print and television.

    DDW director Vikram Varma said “We are excited at being selected. We think that, with the emphasis on premium international brands and high quality products instead of the usual discounts and offers, Rock.in has an edge in the crowded e-commerce space. We are really looking forward to be working alongside them in achieving their marketing goals.”

    The media planning and buying for the brand is handled by an in-house team. The digital duties of Rock.in will be looked into by a UK based agency High Performance (HP) that has worked on brands like Sony, LLoyds TSB and House.

    Rock.in marketing head Pradeep Mohindroo said, “We wanted to hire the best people in the world for the job, we met quite a few agencies in India, and a lot of proposals came from abroad as well. At the end of it, with HP we found partners who could simplify the complicated and had the confidence of making an entirely new model of remuneration, based out of performance.”

    Talking about the brand and where it is coming from Rock.in CEO Surah Sharma added, “We have a very clear idea of our target group; he or she has a discerning taste, is well travelled and aspires to be more of a world citizen. Fashion is such an important part of life, and by bringing some of the top fashion labels we aim at meeting the needs of this ever growing target group. Our work doesn‘t stop at just selling the products; it is our aim to WOW our customers at every touch point. Thus, we‘ve focused a lot into touch and feel aspects of the company. In the long run, it will not just be our products that will differentiate us from the competition; it will also be these softer aspects that will make us stand apart.”

    DDW, a nine year old company, has offices in Mumbai and Delhi and has worked on brands like Yahoo!, Hindustan Unilever, Filmfare, Marico, LinkedIn and MTV.

    Rock.in, which was launched in May 2012, has licenses and distribution rights for some of the global labels across London, Paris and Milan. Some of these brands include La Redoute, Paris Hilton, Lipsy London, Calvin Klein Men, DKNY and House of Dereon.