Grey takes Scotch-Brite away from O&M

Grey Worldwide, Bangalore, seems to be on a winning spree. After bagging the Manipal Group’s on-site campus duties recently, it has now added another account to its kitty: 3M India’s scrubbing brand, Scotch-Brite, which has moved from O&M.

Lowe, TBWA and Orchid were the other agencies that participated in the pitch for the business, which was held in December 2005. Industry sources estimate the size of the business to be around Rs 3-4 crore.

Initiative has been the AOR on this account since July 2004.

On the reason for choosing Grey Worldwide over the others, DS Sachdeva, general manager, consumer and office business, 3M India, says, “The market for such products in India is very different from those in the Western countries. Keeping that in mind, Grey Worldwide offered us a good strategy to grow and develop the brand further in India, with more emphasis on market creation than on market share.”

Sachdeva hints that 3M India is planning to launch some more products in the home care segment under the Scotch-Brite brand. Grey Worldwide will handle the entire advertising communication for the launch.

An enthused Sanjay Menon, associate vice-president and regional creative director, Grey Worldwide, Bangalore, remarks, “It is a prestigious win for us and particularly special as Scotch-Brite is a brand that we have handled before, for four years in the 1990s. It feels almost like a homecoming.”

Menon remarks that in order to ace at the pitch, Grey Worldwide sent its people out to the marketplace so that they could understand how the brand was doing in the market and what consumers thought of it. This additional study helped Grey gain an edge.

He adds, “In India, the Scotch-Brite brand doesn’t have any competitor as such because there are no other reputed brands in this category. But then this doesn’t reduce our task any. Now the challenge is to develop the household cleaning tools category and make people aware of the benefits of Scotch-Brite because Indians still tend to use dishwashing soaps with a cloth to clean utensils.”

The communication mix for the new campaign will include television, press, on ground and below the line activities. Retail advertising, such as activation programmes at the retail level, trial generation and in-store branding efforts, will play a prominent role. The budget allocation to each of these media components is in the process of being finalised.

For the record, Scotch-Brite was launched in India in 1990. 3M India has around 2,000 diverse products in categories such as industrial, automotive and speciality materials, electrical and telecom, healthcare, traffic and safety, electronics, construction and consumer and office markets.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!