Leo Burnett gets Knock Out and DS Group's Catch brand

Leo Burnett, Delhi, has got two new advertising accounts - South African Breweries' (SAB) beer brand Knock Out and DS Foods' Catch spices. While the Knock Out account was the result of a creative-cum-strategy pitch, there was no pitch for DS Foods' Catch business. Knock Out is SAB's second brand with Leo Burnett. The first is Three Lions, also a beer brand, which it acquired in October last year. As things stands now, of the three beer brands of SAB (Castle Lager, Three Lions and Knock Out), Three Lions and Knock Out are with Leo Burnett, and Castle Lager is with O&M, Delhi.

The other agency that pitched for the Knock Out business was Graphic Arts. What made the client decide in Leo Burnett's favour was the agency's "…strategic thinking and supporting creative…" which worked well for the brand. Vinod Giri, head of marketing & sales, SAB India, refused to comment on the size of the business. However, according to industry sources, the ad spend should be to tune of Rs 6-7 crore. For the record, lead brands Kingfisher (United Breweries) and Haywards (Shaw Wallace) spend around Rs 15 crore and Rs 10 crore on advertising every year.

To put things into perspective, SAB bought out Mysore Breweries in June 2001, which had two breweries in Bangalore and Aurangabad. With the deal, Knock Out strong beer came into the company's fold.

As Knock Out is set for a national roll out, and would thus be pitted against heavyweights Kingfisher and Haywards in the strong beer category, the advertising strategy for Knock Out is being reworked with great vigour. This time the creative folk at Leo Burnett are exploring new imageries to convey the essence of ‘strong' beer. "Earlier Knock Out had a unidimensional character, with ‘macho qualities' and physical strength as brand associations. What we have in mind is that we'll go beyond the physical associations of the brand, into the emotional terrain. The objective is to connect with the youth; so the brand communication will stress on the intrinsic associations of strength rather than extrinsic associations," explains Rahul Kansal, deputy managing director, Leo Burnett.

Knock Out's new campaign is expected to break in March. Now that alcohol advertising is banned on TV, reaching out to consumers across the country is going to be trifle difficult. Giri is not disheartened. "We are exploring all the ways and means of effectively communicating to consumers while staying within the ambit of law. At this stage all I can say is that we love Knock Out for what it stands and would not sell it as an apple juice or mineral water."

Simultaneously, Leo Burnett is working at spicing up the advertising of the Catch brand as DS Foods has decided to get aggressive on its non-tobacco business. The account is estimated at Rs 7-8 crore. By the end of this year, DS Foods plans to launch five to six new products. However, it hasn't decided whether the diversification would be under the Catch brand or a new one.

What the company is clear about is that the new communication should strive at driving home the taste and range of Catch spices. Already four ads have been aired on TV and more are to follow. "Since we are adding more variants to our existing range of spices, taking the number from 10 to 25, we want to drive down this message by making an emotional bond with the mother through the child in a light-hearted manner," explains Vinit Khanna, corporate head, marketing, DS Foods.

A bigger task for the agency as well as the company is to reposition Catch salt from a dining table salt to a kitchen salt. "Needless to say that Catch salt is free flowing, iodised and of premium quality. What we need to do now is to work out a strategy to reposition Catch salt as kitchen salt," says Khanna. Brain storming sessions are on to get the emotional hook for this. While it is not known when the new campaign for Catch salt will break, what is certain is that the spend will be skewed towards television. © 2002 agencyfaqs!