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Now, Sabena goes to Grey
South Indian dishwash brand Sabena plans country-wide launch
Grey Worldwide is on a winning spree. Barely had the excitement of winning Kinetic's Nova and Emirates died down that, the agency has got one more plum account - this time, in the form of creative and media duties for Sabena, a popular dishwash brand in the south.
The size of the Sabena business is pegged at Rs 10 crore, which basically means that the agency has accumulated business worth Rs 30 crore in the last fortnight alone. Other acquisitions in this period were Kinetic's Nova (Rs 11 crore) and Emirates (Rs 9 crore).
Confirming the development on the Sabena win, says G Parimelazhagan, director, sales & logistics, ECOF Industries (the company behind the Sabena brand), "Yes, the business has been awarded to Grey Chennai."
It has been reliably learnt that there were quite a few agencies in the fray, and three had made it to the final round. Among them were Grey Worldwide and Euro RSCG.
Sabena is a 40-year-old dishwash brand, available only in the southern markets. The Rs 65-crore ECOF Industries is now aiming for a national launch for Sabena dishwash bar. And this is where the agency 's role comes into play. "Grey would launch the brand for us, " states Parimelazhagan.
Sabena is present in all variants of the dishwash category -- powder, bar and dishwash liquid. While the brand has a 16 per cent market share among dishwash bars, its market share in the powder category is 65 per cent.
Considering the stronghold of Vim (it has a 70 per cent share in the dishwash bar category), Sabena will have to fight hard to get consumer attention. Parimelazhagan understands that it is going to be quite a challenge and therefore, says that the brand will need a high voltage multimedia campaign to create awareness.
Responding to a query on the company's plans to go national with Sabena, Parimelazhagan said, "We are doing this to get more volumes. And, North is where the volumes are."
For the record, ECOF Industries also has a premium detergent bar, Kylo, in its product portfolio. Kylo was recently launched in Tamil Nadu. ECOF plans to take Kylo to other southern states shortly. The brand is being serviced by a Chennai-based agency, Fifth Estate. © 2004 agencyfaqs!