Shree Ganesh's high visibility campaign for IPO

To create excitement amongst the financial institutions and corporate houses, Shree Ganesh Jewellery House had launched a campaign to create awareness around its IPO announcement. The success of the campaign resulted in the issue being subscribed about two times.

The jewellery maker and exporter of handcrafted gold jewellery roped in Global Advertisers to create the campaign with an interesting mix of ATL (above the line) and BTL (below-the-line) activities that would help the company generate an overwhelming interest around its IPO launch. The campaign was designed to not only create awareness but also activate the target audience.

The company used several media in order to generate buzz around the IPO. "We'd created a special buzz for our client, where we not only used hoardings but various other media such as mobile vans, umbrellas, balloons, lookwalkers, backpackers and bus shelters, amongst others," says Sanjeev Gupta, chairperson and managing director, Global Advertisers.

The company used about four mobile vans in Delhi and Mumbai for a period of 15 days. It also used umbrellas and balloons all over the city, with the company's branding and information on when the issue would open. Similarly, backpackers sized 5 ½ ft X 2 ft were lit. "This created a lot of awareness because there were a lot of places where hoardings were very rare or were not available. Since we wanted maximum reach, we used umbrellas and balloons that created high viability and lookwalkers and back-packers grabbed attention," says Dalal. The company also did branding at the airports through strollers and hoardings.

While it was designed to reach the masses, the two week campaign was mainly targeted at institutional investors and corporate houses. The company also exploited other media to garner attention. "We had TVCs running on business channels such as CNBC TV-18, UTV Bloomberg and NDTV Profit, where we could target potential investors. We also advertised in newspapers and magazines," says Dalal.

The campaign reached cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi and four cities in Gujarat, including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat. "We focused more on Gujarat because from our research, we realised that in all the issues, most of the money comes in from Gujarat, especially these four cities," Dalal tells afaqs!.

"We used as many media as we could to ensure that we got maximum mileage during the campaign," says Gupta.

Recently, the company also signed up small screen personality Mandira Bedi as its brand ambassador. Rationalising the decision, Dalal says, "She is a person who brought a lot of glamour to the game (cricket), which was primarily a men's territory. We thought that with her attitude and popularity, we could get the required attention."

The company currently has 13 retail stores over the country and plans to expand to another 40-45 stores in the next three years. It also plans to take the campaign ahead through TVCs, print and by participating in franchisee exhibitions. Aerial advertising to promote its retail stores is also on the cards. "Due to certain restrictions in Mumbai, we could not use aeroplanes for the IPO as we had planned but going forward, we'd like to do it for our retail," says Dalal.

According to sources, the company, which opened its first retail store two years ago in Kolkata, is said to have an advertising budget of Rs 5 crore for the fiscal year 2010-11.

Incorporated in 2002, the Kolkata based jewellery house will be listed at the NSE and BSE today.