Grey wins Butterfly Home Appliances' creative business

This is the first time the brand has roped in a creative AOR for the long term; about 8 per cent of the brand's overall spends have been earmarked towards advertising.

Grey Chennai has won the creative mandate for Butterfly Home Appliances, a brand offering from parent company Gandhimathi Appliances. The account movement has been confirmed to afaqs! by VML Karthikeyan, vice-president, marketing, Gandhimathi Appliances.

The agency will now handle the creative duties for the whole range of Butterfly Home Appliances. Typically, the brand rolls out fresh communication once every two months and will continue to do so.

Grey wins Butterfly Home Appliances' creative business

It has also been learnt that the brand has allotted about 8 per cent of its overall spends towards advertising and marketing purposes. The ad spends will be evenly split between ATL (above the line) and BTL (below the line) communication channels. As far as ATL is concerned, while television ads will form a major part of the communication in states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, print communication will be used more in Kerala. BTL communication is slated to involve POP (point of purchase) and display ads at the retail level.

The development is the result of a multi-agency pitch that was initiated a couple of months ago. The pitch process involved three rounds and saw the participation of seven-eight agencies, out of which three were shortlisted for the second round. Towards the end, it was down to a choice between Grey and Dentsu.

Agencies that pitched for the account include Leo Burnett, McCann Erickson, Law & Kenneth, Dentsu amongst several others.

During the creative-led pitch process, participating agencies were given a comprehensive insight and were required to come up with an appropriate positioning stand for the brand. "They were judged based on their thinking capability," shares Karthikeyan, adding that it was Grey's versatile bandwidth in terms of its "ability to think" that helped the agency clinch the business.

Addressing the account win, Hari Krishnan, Vice President, Grey, South, says, "I think we defined the challenges for the brand accurately, which allowed us to get our strategy spot-on. Also, in terms of creative, we were able to demonstrate our capabilities effectively. More than anything else, it’s the passion and enthusiasm of our team, which really stood out. Kudos to the team of Sham Ramachandran, Divyapratap Mehta and Vijai Ambalavanan."

This is the first time that the brand has brought on board a creative agency of record for the long term. Earlier, Butterfly Home Appliances has worked with Dentsu, albeit on a project basis. The brand has also worked with Chennai-based creative agencies Crystal and Pixelkraft, on a project basis. Karthikeyan adds, "We may continue to work with Dentsu for some projects in the future."

So far, Butterfly Home Appliances has carried out its media planning and buying through regional release agents. The brand also plans to initiate a pitch to rope in a suitable media agency on a long-term basis.

For the record, the brand is currently present across six states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Test marketing in a few northern regions such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi is currently underway, and in its nascent stages.

The brand is currently present in 12 product categories, including LPG stoves, mixer-grinders, table top grinders, pressure cookers, stainless steel vacuum flasks, stainless steel lunch boxes and cookware sets.

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