Kapil Ohri
Digital

Voltas resorts to cause marketing with Jagmag Desh Mera

The air conditioner brand will spend most of its advertising budget of Rs 25 crore to encourage consumers to donate money for an initiative called Lighting a Billion Lives

Tata-owned Voltas AC has extended its positioning of energy efficient air conditioners to cause related marketing.

It is running a campaign, titled Jagmag Desh Mera, aimed at encouraging consumers to donate a part of the money, which they save by using power saving Voltas air conditioners, to support an initiative called Lighting a Billion Lives of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Lighting a Billion Lives is targeted at bringing light into the lives of one billion rural people by replacing their kerosene and paraffin lanterns with solar lighting devices. Voltas has tied up with TERI to support this initiative and the company has committed to light up 10 villages in 2009.

On the idea behind opting for cause related marketing, Satbir Singh, chief creative officer, Euro RSCG India, tells afaqs!, “Voltas AC is positioned as ‘India ka AC’, with the star-rating which can save about Rs 10,000 per annum. It helps consumers save an enormous amount which, if donated, can help TERI to light up various homes in India.” Euro RSCG India has conceptualised the creative part of the campaign.

Voltas resorts to cause marketing with Jagmag Desh Mera
Voltas resorts to cause marketing with Jagmag Desh Mera
Enabling consumers to participate or donate directly towards the initiative is one objective of the campaign. The other aim is to push sales, for which the company has committed to contribute a part of the revenue earned on the sale of each air conditioner to TERI.

So how is Voltas creating awareness about the Jagmag Desh Mera activity? The company is already using TV, print and outdoor advertising since April 2009 to inform the consumers, and online advertising to get their responses.

The Voltas AC TV commercial is running across various channels such as NDTV 24X7, Aaj Tak, CNBC, Times Now, Discovery and National Geographic. Its print ads are appearing in The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Hindu newspapers across India.

Pradeep Bakshi, vice-president, Voltas AC, says, “We are spending about Rs 25 crore on advertising in this financial year, majority of which will be spent in the summer season.” The company is routing about 50 and 25 per cent of its advertising budget to TV and print ads respectively.

It is spending about 10 per cent of its advertising budget on the Internet, which is much higher than the 2-3 per cent spent by the company till the last financial year.

“Voltas is using banner, video and search marketing on the Internet to build hype and interactivity around Jagmag Desh Mera,” says Kushal Sanghvi, managing director, Media Contacts, the digital arm of Havas Media, which is managing the online part of the campaign.

The banner ads redirect consumers to a webpage where they can submit their details in order to get contacted by the company for the cause.

About 24 crore impressions, including banner and video ads, are already being served on websites such as Yahoo!, Rediff, MSN, Sify and NDTV.com in the month of May. The digital agency claims that banner and video ads received a click through rate (CTR) of 1.2 and 5 per cent respectively during the initial stage of the campaign. It also claims that on an average, the campaign has clocked about 0.77 per cent average CTR.

The company plans to launch some below-the-line activities across eight metros and Tier II towns in the coming days to encourage consumers to donate towards the cause. It will also roll out a radio campaign on Big FM soon.

Is the advertising working for Voltas? Bakshi says, “We have seen a growth of 30 per cent in sales during April and May 2009, as compared to sales in these months in 2008.”

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