Neha Kalra
OOH

Pond’s Age Miracle: Casting a year long spell

Pond’s Age Miracle completes a year in the Indian market this month

Pond’s Age Miracle is celebrating its first anniversary in India. And to announce the fact, the premium range of anti-aging products from the global skincare expert is utilising a new outdoor technique to ensure brand registration in the minds of consumers.

Ashok Venkatramani, vice-president, skin care, HLL, says, “Pond’s Age Miracle is celebrating its first anniversary and the celebration is part of this innovative outdoor attempt to catch the eyeballs of more and more women. This is just one of the other techniques that we keep coming up with for the brand, to create a space for the brand in (people’s) minds.”

At the Centrestage Mall in Noida, a static globe in the brand colour, red, cannot but catch your eye. The globe has an LCD screen embedded in it, which streams videos of women narrating their experiences with the product. Similar red globes can be seen at Ansal Plaza and the South Extension market in Delhi and at the MGF Mall in Gurgaon.

Pond’s Age Miracle: Casting a year long spell
The red globe at Centrestage Mall, Noida
The outdoor initiative has been taken up only in Delhi and the national capital region for now. It was started in mid-December 2007 and will continue till the middle of January. The television campaign for the first anniversary of Pond’s Age Miracle will hit the screens on January 15, says Venkatramani.

“Outdoor is not a new medium for Pond’s Age Miracle as a brand, and they have had outdoor advertisements on hoardings and bus shelters,” says Himanshu Shekhar, general manager of MindShare Fulcrum, the media AoR for all HLL brands. “However, the media mix for the brand has evolved over the years. The brand was launched with a mix of outdoor and magazine advertising last year. Television advertising was taken up two-three months down the line, but limited to niche channels. Over a period of time, the media platform has expanded for the brand, with digital joining the bandwagon.” O&M is the creative agency for Pond’s.

A new Swap activity is to be initiated from today, wherein women can swap any cream they own (priced at a minimum of Rs 400) for an Age Miracle product at a Pond’s Miracle Boutique. A multimedia campaign is in place to tell women about this offer, says Venkatramani.

In April 2007, Pond’s launched the Miracle boutiques, where women can consult experts appointed by the company on their skin problems. The boutiques have a website of their own, on which people can post their queries and feedback.

The current outdoor programme was preceded by a seven day challenge campaign, in which women were guaranteed a positive change in their skin at the end of seven days of using any Pond’s Age Miracle product. If the women did not find the product effective, or did not like the product, they were free to return it to any Miracle boutique. The response, Venkatramani says, was very positive.

In January 2007, when Pond’s Age Miracle was introduced in the Indian market, its launch campaign was based on a vox pop format: It had people from various walks of life giving their feedback on the products. This was followed by ‘Romance Revival’, a heartwarming television commercial of a husband-turned-chef trying to bring romance back into his married life. These campaigns continued to be aired for the first six months of the brand’s launch.

An endorsement campaign on television wherein celebrities such as Mehr Jesia Rampal, former Miss India and model, and Rina Dhaka, fashion designer, talk about how Pond’s Age Miracle has changed their lives, is also seen off and on. Currently, a television campaign, ‘Satisfaction amongst Millions’, is being screened.

With players like L’Oreal and Olay, in addition to Pond’s, the anti-aging market in India stands at Rs 60 crore today, according to Nielsen figures for 2007, and it is growing at a rate of 30-40 per cent per annum, says Venkatramani.

Venkatramani says further, “In terms of anti-aging, we are looking at opening up the market. We launched a prestige brand, but not at a prestige price, because we aim to take the brand the ‘masstige’ way. As a whole, internationally, Pond’s has a ‘masstige’ image, very unlike the image that it has in India – that of a traditional cold cream. Pond’s Age Miracle is ultimately a part of Pond’s, the main brand, and so there needs to be a connecting point. The brand is gradually walking towards its destination of imagery in India, which requires a build-up.”

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