Sumita Vaid
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Monto Motors awards Cosmo to Triton

Triton Communications’ Delhi office has bagged the advertising account of Chinese bike Cosmo, which comprises the 100-cc Blaster and 125-cc Soljier motorcycles


agencyfaqs!

NEW DELHI

Triton Communications' Delhi office has bagged the estimated Rs 2-crore advertising account of Chinese bike Cosmo. This comprises the 100-cc Blaster and 125-cc Soljier motorcycles.

Interestingly, Triton didn't figure in the first list of agencies drawn up by the company to be invited for the pitch. As reported by agencyfaqs! (Monto Motors invites pitches for Cosmo, the first Chinese bike to enter India), the company had invited 10 agencies including Enterprise Nexus, Studio Communications, Joint & Arms Communications, iB&W, Phoenix, Work Station, Foundation, Akanksha, Mercantile and Square Vision Media. It seems after the August 2 report on agencyfaqs! six more agencies met up with the company - Mudra Communications, Ambience D'Arcy, Triton, Montage, Publicis and Percom Communications. These agencies were briefed by the company "to propose ideas to position Cosmo vis-à-vis competition in both the rural and urban markets," explains R Chibber, general manager marketing, Monto Motors.

As it turns out, Triton had the best solution. However, while talking to agencyfaqs!, company officials insisted "this is just an unofficial announcement; paperwork is still pending." The contract would be signed after Diwali. For the same reason, company executives insisted, the size of the advertising account is yet to be decided. Chibber said while the spends on mass-media advertising will be ‘adequate', bulk of the monies will be spent on ground-level activities. Industry sources say the account would be worth around Rs 2 crore.

Though the company is yet to finalise its advertising plans, what is evident is that it plans to fight the battle mostly in print. Which would make it trifle difficult for Cosmo to rattle competition in the form of Hero Honda's CBZ and Passion, and Suzuki's Fiero, which use the audio-visual medium in a big way. The company officials emphasise the print campaign, set to break in December, will get a tremendous boost from road shows planned in the cities of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab (where Cosmo is available already). By December end, Cosmo will be launched in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

With the support of its 167-strong dealer network, Monto Motors has set a sales target of 4,000 motorcycles per month for this fiscal and plans to double its target for the next year - looking to sell 8,000-10,000 units per month.

Alongside the company is working on the launch of a third product, Fun Bike. Fun Bike would have three models - the K bike, X bike and Quad. While K and X are two-wheelers, Quad is a four-wheeler. K bike is priced at Rs 15,000, X is priced at Rs 16,500 and Quad sports a price tag of Rs 26,000. Talking about the target segment for these bikes, Chibber says, "These Fun Bikes are meant to be driven around in farmhouses, beaches, children's parks etc." Currently, they are available in Mumbai and Delhi. Plans are afoot to take the Fun Bikes into Chandigarh, Baroda, Ahemdabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin and Hyderabad.

Monto Motors is in the process of finalising deals with car dealers to promote Fun Bikes. It would also finalise the agency for Fun Bikes pretty soon. "The appointed agency is definitely going to be one of the agencies in the fray for Cosmo," says Chibber. However contenders would have to wait till Diwali to know the final score on that front.

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