Shakun Advertising bags Nobel Hygiene account

Nobel Hygiene, the manufacturer of personal hygiene products, has got on board Shakun Advertising as its agency on record to handle its creative account. The company claims to have a advertising budget of Rs 10 crore for the coming year. The incumbent agency was mc2 (Madison Creative), which handled the account for about three years.

Nobel Hygiene, which sells baby diapers (under the brand name Teddy) and adult diapers and maternity diapers (under the brand name Friends) called for the pitch about six months ago. Four agencies participated in the pitch process, including Saatchi & Saatchi, ADK Fortune and Perich Advertising. After three rounds of presentation, Shakun Advertising finally won the account.

Part of the Jaipur based Shakun group, the agency is looking to leverage media including print, radio, OOH, television, digital and below-the-line. Initially, only the print campaign will be launched, supported by radio and later moving to OOH.

The TV campaign will be launched later, in the next financial year. "The company is expanding its distribution network, so when we break the pan-India TVC campaign and there is need for the product, it is available in the market," explains Ravi Chhaparwal, director, Shakun Advertising.

The agency has already rolled out the pan-India print campaign in newspapers such The Times of India, Mumbai Mirror and women's magazines such as Women's Era and Femina.

"Usually in diaper ads, it is the mother communicating about the product. However, in our communication strategy for Teddy, we show babies communicating 'why my diaper is so great'. The ad will also focus on the features of the product which are unique to it," Chapparwal adds about the execution of the communication message.

The agency also plans to carry out activation programmes involving play schools in major cities. It is eyeing maternity hospitals to market the product to the new parents by offering them Teddy kits. "It is the first time that parents experience the brand for their babies and that brand kind of stays with them. So that is what we are going to use as the first touch point," Chapparwal tells afaqs!.

Nobel Hygiene also plans to launch an informative website for new parents. Perizaad Zorabian (of Jogger's Park fame) may be roped in as the brand ambassador.

The agency has earlier handled the company's account before it moved to Madison three years ago. Back then, Nobel Hygiene was more focused on the adult diapers segment.

The company, which has been operating in the segment for the past 10 years, claims to be the only company in India with an Indian origin that has a diaper manufacturing unit in the country. It recently invested about Rs 30 crore in setting up the manufacturing unit in Nashik, Maharashtra. Apart from Nobel Hygiene, Texas (USA) based Kimberly Clark has a manufacturing unit in India for its baby diaper brand, Huggies.