Saatchi & Saatchi wins creative duties of Mother Dairy

In a four-way pitch that included Lowe, Contract Advertising and JWT, Saatchi & Saatchi has was won the creative duties for the entire Mother Dairy product portfolio. This includes Mother Dairy milk, flavoured milk, ice creams, curd, butter, lassi (buttermilk) and paneer (cottage cheese). The account was earlier with Interface, the sister agency of FCB-Ulka. While the size of the account could not be ascertained, company sources say Mother Dairy is a "potentially large" business.

Explaining the choice of Saatchi & Saatchi, Paul Thachil, head, sales & marketing, Mother Dairy, said, "Four agencies we thought were capable of handling our business were invited and evaluated. At the end of the process we decided to entrust the complete Mother Dairy business with Saatchi & Saatchi." Talking about the communication task, Anand Narasimha, executive vice-president, Saatchi & Saatchi India, said, "Our task would be to build the Mother Dairy brand outside the boundaries of Delhi."

Yes, Mother Dairy is planning to roll out its products across the country. By the end of this year, Mother Dairy hopes to makes its products available in the entire northern region of the country and in another year, make Mother Dairy a national brand.

So how does Saatchi want people across the country to relate to Mother Dairy? "We need to make Mother Dairy into a ‘lovemark'," specifies Narasimha. "Lovemarks," as explained by Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi Ideas Company, "are brands that have evolved from a place in the market to the heart of a culture. With the power of love they create life-long emotional connections." With this definition in mind, Saatchi plans "to make the consumer fall in love with the brand and build an emotional relationship with her". That is because, as Narasimha explains, "the critical factor for purchase has evolved into something that seeks to fulfill the emotional need of a consumer." To make Mother Dairy national, the company will rely on a multi-media campaign.

In addition to the creative duties of Mother Dairy, Saatchi would also handle the local advertising of regional milk brands. Mother Dairy plans to ink tie-ups with various state federations to give marketing and sales support to the local milk brands of those states. In fact, Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) has already tied up with Mother Dairy Foods to promote Milma milk and its milk-based products. It will be done through a joint venture company called Mother Foods, in which Mother Dairy holds a 51 per cent stake, while Milma holds the rest of the equity. Milma would continue to be responsible for the procurement, processing and packaging of milk and milk products in the state, while the joint venture company will be in charge of marketing these products.

"The cooperative milk brands have been very low profile since spends were low. But they are very strong regionally. For example, Nandini is a Rs 1,000-crore brand in Karnataka. The idea is to give marketing support to these brands and aggressively promote them," says Thachil.

Mother Dairy is in the process of finalising a JV with Parag (Uttar Pradesh) and is currently in talks with the milk federations in Andhra Pradesh (Vijaya), Punjab (Verka), Karnataka (Nandini), and Rajasthan (Saras) to establish similar marketing JVs.

Under this scheme of things, Saatchi & Saatchi will also handle the local advertising for these regional brands. Thachil clarified that the national roll out of the Mother Dairy brand and the joint ventures with regionally strong milk brands are two separate marketing initiatives. Mother Dairy brands would not be sold at the outlets of these regional brands.

Interestingly, Mother Dairy is on the look out for a media partner for its three brands - Mother Dairy, Safal and Dhara. For the record, the creative account of Safal is handled by Interact Vision, while Dhara is with Mudra Communications. © 2003 agencyfaqs!