Yamaha gets ADK Fortune, Mindshare on board

The company has earmarked a marketing budget of about Rs 100 crore

Yamaha Motors India has roped in ADK Fortune -- the joint venture between JWT and Japanese advertising agency, ADK -- as its creative partner. The contract with ADK, which is yet to get the final sign-up, has media duties being looked after by GroupM's Mindshare.

Prior to this, Dentsu Communications and Dentsu Media were the creative and media custodians of the brand, respectively. The agency has handled the business for about five years. Bates 141 (then Bates Enterprise) has also looked after a portion of the business in the past.

Yamaha gets ADK Fortune, Mindshare on board

Talking to afaqs!, Pankaj Dubey, national business head, Yamaha Motors India, reveals that the pitch process began in September and that two rounds of presentations took place, after which the agency was finalised.

The multi-agency pitch included Hakuhodo Percept, Dentsu Communications, Bates 141 and Grey Worldwide. In the last round of presentations, Hakuhodo Percept and ADK Fortune were learnt to have fought it quite close.

"The brief provided to the agencies was about the forthcoming Auto Expo, which is to take place in January 2010. We were seeking opinion on how brand Yamaha could be showcased and even blended with the event. Basis on that, the agency was also awarded the duties for the entire product range," says Dubey.

The first round of presentations was a creative one. The second round had the shortlisted agencies -- Hakuhodo Percept and ADK Fortune -- being briefed about the company's expectations, as well as discussing about media.

For the record, JWT handles the creative duties of another bike brand, Hero Honda. The agency has been the brand's creative partner for quite some time now.

As compared to Yamaha's marketing spend of about Rs 130 crore last year; the figure this year is about Rs 100 crore. About Rs 45 crore of this will be directed towards above-the-line/traditional advertising. Of this, 75 per cent would be allotted to television; about 10 per cent to print and the rest to out-of-home (OOH) and radio. Advertising on radio would be mostly on a local level, with local offices taking it up as per their need.

The price range of Yamaha bikes begins at Rs 34,000 and goes up to Rs 20 lakh. The models include Crux (priced at Rs 34,000), Alba, G5, Gladiator, FZ16, FZS, Fazer, R15, R1, T01 and VMax (priced at Rs 20 lakh).

Of these, FZS and Fazer were launched this year; while FZ16 and R15 were launched last year.

Yamaha's position in the past revolved largely around commuter biking. "However, some time back, we re-jigged ourselves to match the brand image; ushered in products to suit Yamaha's imagery; and chose to go the performance-oriented, stylish and sporty way. Targeting the youth was on the anvil," says Dubey.

In this market, Bajaj remains a clear leader with 48-50 per cent market share. For the past two months, Yamaha has been the second largest and Hero Honda the third largest player -- though Hero Honda was ahead of Yamaha before that. Honda and TVS have a similar share; and Suzuki has a small portion in the pie, too.

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