Britannia’s Raj Halve moves to GoAir

Raj Halve, head, new ventures, Britannia, will now don a new mantle. He has joined GoAir as chief commercial officer. For the uninitiated, Britannia and GoAir are both part of the Wadia Group.

Halve comments on his move from an FMCG brand to an airline: “The Wadia Group has a strong belief in working as a true group and, therefore, using various resources from the group for the tasks at hand. There was a need for someone with my skill set at GoAir. When I was offered the assignment, I took it up because I believe that the airline sector is all set for a boom in the Indian economy.”

Halve’s main task at GoAir will be revenue generation. He will look after various disciplines, such as marketing, sales, distribution, pricing, ancillary revenue streams, cargo sales and customer service management (including call centres and IT).

Halve feels that the biggest challenge in the airline industry is to stimulate demand and make AC train and Volvo bus passengers shift to air travel.

“More passengers travel by train every day than fly in a year in India!” he exclaims. “With lower and affordable fares from the new breed of airlines that have been launched in India, such as GoAir, this conversion from trains and buses to airlines will gain momentum.”

In order to achieve that, GoAir recently launched the ‘Great GoAir Challenge’, which stimulates the public to find a better, comparable fare. If you manage to do so, GoAir says it will give you back twice the difference in amount. The airline brand hopes that this will facilitate the passenger’s buying process and bring clarity in a market where various fares and schemes end up confusing the first-time traveller.

An MBA holder from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, Halve started his career in 1986 with Tata Administrative Service (TAS). He moved on to join Titan Watches and was part of the team that launched the brand. He then moved to advertising, with a stint at Lowe (then Lintas) in Mumbai. In the early 1990s, he helped start Lowe’s operations in Dubai. That was followed by a four-year stint with British American Tobacco (BAT).

He returned to India in 2000 and worked with several corporations, among them Reliance Infocom WebStore, Shaw Wallace and, more recently, Britannia.

According to Halve, his most exhilarating project till date was the re-launch of White Mischief during his stint at Shaw Wallace. “White spirits have a very different consumer profile as compared to dark liquor,” Halve says. “Normally, the communication in this category shows macho actors and crude behaviour. We reversed that and showed two women ogling at a guy.”

Halve also zeroed in on white and blue as the colours for the communication because he believes these are the colours that depict lightness and clarity, both characteristics of white spirits. Halve claims the brand soon became India’s largest selling vodka brand.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!