Amaron: Long lasting communication

The new commercial for Amaron car batteries is an attempt to communicate the ‘long lasting battery’ message to car owners without showing a clichéd ‘stalled car’ situation

N. Shatrujeet

agencyfaqs!

NEW DELHI, Sept 21

"We all have a basic fear about the car battery conking out, but we never really bother about it until it lets us down - which invariably happens at the oddest of moments," says Piyush Pandey, executive creative director, Ogilvy & Mather (O&M).

And then, life can be one thankless pain in the wrong place. Which is the idea encapsulated in the line for Amaron batteries - ‘The life of your battery can change your life.'

The new commercial for Amaron illustrates the point effectively. A girl driving a car through a desert is having a heated argument with her boyfriend, who is accompanying her. Suddenly, the hotheaded girl decides to dump him - literally and figuratively. She pulls the car onto the shoulder of the road and orders the boy to get out of her car and her life - bang in the middle of the barren desert.

The poor chap pleads, but nah! The unrelenting girl forces him out of the car, hails down a passing truck and forces him aboard. As the truck departs, the girl gets into her car to drive away. The car won't start. Panicking, the girl turns and waves at the departing truck - for help. Her erstwhile beau, assuming this to be a goodbye gesture, waves back timidly as the truck makes for the horizon.

"We did not want to use cliched situations where you are driving to office for a major presentation, or driving to the airport to catch a flight and your battery goes down, leaving you in one hell of a situation," reveals Pandey. "Instead, we picked a situation which is totally out of the ordinary, and tweaked it a bit to play a trick on somebody acting too smart." Way too smart for her own good, as it turns out.

O&M's brief was to create the perception in the car owner's mind that Amaron is a world-class auto battery. The fact that it is a zero-maintenance product and is backed by a 3-year warranty, and that it is specifically designed to suit Indian conditions also needed to be communicated. In other words, the ‘long lasting battery' message had to be put across so that the next time the consumer needed a battery, Amaron would figure in the consideration set.

Given the nature of the car battery market, that itself is an uphill task. For the average consumer, the car battery is a low-involvement product. Consumers prefer leaving the decision making to the car mechanic or service center. And although the market does have quite a few big brands, the unorganized sector holds sway.

The total market for automotive batteries is estimated at 6-7 million units per annum, worth around Rs 1,500 crore. The market is assumed to be growing at over 12 per cent. While OEM sales account for a little over 1.2 million units, the balance represents the replacement battery market.

With replacements accounting for nearly 80 per cent of sales, it's natural for Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL), the manufacturers of Amaron, to eye this market. And here's where it runs into stiff competition from the unorganized sector, which constitutes 60-65 per cent of the market. ARBL's rivals in the organized sector include Exide, Amco, SF and Prestolite.

Of course, ARBL claims that Amaron has done pretty well for itself since its launch in January 2000. The brand was launched in Delhi and has been taken to other parts of the country in a phased manner. ARBL claims that in Delhi, Amaron has achieved a 10-12 per cent market share, and market share in other cities and towns is "showing a sharp upward trend".

"We have excelled sales targets in every city where Amaron has so far been launched," says Jayadev Galla, executive director, ARBL. "Our distribution network and service program gives us a competitive edge which will help us grow along with our franchisee and retail partners."

One reason why the car battery is a low-involvement category is because, traditionally, auto batteries have been sold at auto accessory shops, which, almost invariably, are cluttered, greasy and unapproachable. In a bid to increase involvement, ARBL recently launched a distribution network through franchisee outlets, branded Amaron Pit Stops.

Here, customers can not only buy hi-life Amaron batteries, but also avail ARBL's proprietary value-added Alternator Regulator Battery and Starter Diagnostic Program. While the first Amaron Pit Stops were inaugurated in Chennai and Mumbai, over 20 more are scheduled for launch 15 other leading metros and mini-metros.

"With this distribution strategy, ARBL aims to give the service angle a new dimension - that of giving the customer a complete ‘experience' of the brand," says Galla. ARBL has also struck OEM deals with General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Ford. "We have been appointed as the exclusive auto battery supplier for the Ford Ikon," Galla adds.

The Amaron Pit Stops are a novel idea and can get the consumer more involved. But before that, the commercial has to work the magic of positioning Amaron as a ‘long lasting battery' with world-class technology. And this could take time. Fortunately, the line ‘The life of your battery can change your life,' has immense possibilities for a long lasting communication effort.

The Team:

Copywriter : Piyush Pandey

Art Director : Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar

Servicing : Mahesh Chauhan, Subhrajit Kar, Amit Seth

Production House : Highlight Films

Director : Prasoon Pandey

Models : Meghna Reddy and Purab Kohli