SSC&B pockets business worth Rs 9-10 crore

Autumn bids farewell not without some good news. The Delhi and the Mumbai offices of SSC&B have picked up new businesses worth Rs 9-10 crore. While the Mumbai branch has won two accounts - the ICICI current account business and Zenith computers (the office computers business as opposed to the home PC business which is with Mudra, Mumbai) - the Delhi branch has gained the advertising account of Hero Motors' Ezee SX scooterette. The ICICI business aside, the two other accounts were the result of a multi-agency pitch. However, the respective companies did not give out the names of the agencies in the fray.

Hero Motors, it seems, had shortlisted seven agencies (of which four made it to the final round) for its scooterette brands Ezee SX and Hero Smart, the recently launched four-stroke step-through. The company finally zeroed in on SSC&B for Ezee SX and Core Communications (a 100 per cent Contract Advertising subsidiary) for Hero Smart. Talking about the brief to the agencies (for Ezee SX), Sanjay Bhardwaj, senior vice-president marketing, Hero Motors, says, "Since we are relaunching Ezee SX our requirement from the agency was a strong positioning that would take the brand forward. With that as the starting point, the agencies were asked to make a credential and a creative presentation," adds Lipika Ganguly, manager, corporate communications, Hero Motors.

Interestingly, with this, Ezee SX comes back to SSC&B after a four-year sojourn. It was SSC&B that had launched the scooterette (then called Ezee) in 1998. It then moved to Euro RSCG and from there it went to Foresight. Now it is back to where it started.

The task for SSC&B is to grow the market of the rechristened Ezee SX. Currently, it sells 5,000 units per month, and the company is looking for that number to grow, and grow fast. The first relaunch of Ezee SX took place while the brand was with Foresight. Now, after a joint research with SSC&B, Hero Motors feels the scooterette needs a second relaunch. Based on the feedback from the research on the major irritants in the scooterette - such as ‘fragile body', ‘less powerful', ‘small tyres' and ‘less storage space' - Hero Motors has decided to modify Ezee and relaunch it with a new price tag of Rs 19,900 in the northern markets and Rs 21,500 in the southern markets.

Pitched as the brand to have ‘My Life, My Way' around, Ezee SX will target the woman, as opposed to the college girl. "The emphasis is on ‘more safety' and ‘more storage space', which are the two major concerns for a woman," says Ajay Chandwani, president, SSC&B. The print campaign for Ezee SX broke earlier this week. The television commercial will hit the screens in January next year.

For Hero Smart, the communication strategy is slightly different. It targets traders and executives on the promise that Hero Smart is ‘100 or nothing'. According to Hero Motors, Smart gives a mileage of 100 km to a litre of petrol, "…which makes it a record breaking vehicle". "On road it gives a mileage of 85 km to a litre," says Bhardwaj.

Simultaneously, SSC&B is working on the print campaign for Zenith computers. What the agency needs to do here is change the perception of it being a ‘value for money' brand to a more premium offering. "Earlier, Zenith was positioned as a product with multinational quality and Indian price. In essence, Zenith's communication strategy was price led," explains Chandwani. "Now the dynamics of the computer market has changed. With falling prices, the price gap between the MNC and Indian brands have narrowed down. So now it makes sense for Zenith to go in for an image make over and take a premium positioning in the fiercely competitive hardware market." © 2002 agencyfaqs!