Everest wins Rs 7-8-crore creative duties of Maxima watches

Following a multi-agency pitch, Everest Integrated Communications has bagged the estimated Rs 7-8-crore creative duties of Maxima watches. Prior to the shift, the business was with Gautam Rakshit-promoted Avenues Advertising. Confirming the development, Amitabha Lahiri, vice-president, Everest, told agencyfaqs!, "What is interesting about the win is that Everest had launched Maxima in India in 1996; now we have the business back with us. It feels good indeed."

Lahiri credits its team for the sound strategic and creative inputs that worked in the agency's favour. "We used the Y&R tool BAV (Brand Asset Valuator) as a platform to create a differentiation for the brand. This tool gave vital inputs to the creative team," says Lahiri.

The launch campaign of Maxima, created by Everest, revolved around a television commercial which showed a Maxima watch falling into a pool and emerging unscathed. After the first range of Aqua collection, Maxima launched its Gold collection for formal occasions (for consumers who look for international designs at affordable prices) and later the Scuba collection for the sporty youth. Despite catering to these different needs, Maxima continued to be perceived as a mass-market brand. With the latest campaign - touting Life Main What a Surprise (With) Maxima and featuring popular veejays Malaika Arora and Cyrus Barocha - the brand is looking to drive home the point that it offers an enviable range and international styling at prices that are "pleasantly surprising".

"The communication strategy would focus on the premium look and feel of the brand rather than the functional aspects as has been the case in the past when the ads highlighted product attributes such as ‘water-proof' ‘unbreakable' etc," points out Lahiri.

This shift from the functional benefit to aspirational brand proposition was driven by market reality. With increasing competition, Maxima was getting squeezed by the lower end models of Titan and Timex from the top and the cheaper Chinese models, which score high on looks but not on reliability, from the bottom. "To extricate itself from this situation, Maxima, which is a healthy number two brand in the country, will get aggressive now," says Lahiri.

At the moment the agency is working on its new multi-media campaign slated to break in April 2004. © 2004 agencyfaqs!