Britannia kicks off festival ad blitz

Britannia Industries, India’s largest biscuits firm with a topline of Rs 3,500 crore last fiscal, has kickstarted its advertising blitz for the ensuing festival season starting on Rakhsa Bhandhan in August.

The company during the earlier years was increasing the tempo of advertising just before Diwali but during this year, the same has been advanced by nearly a couple of months. “We are embarking on a composite advertising campaign starting from Raksha Bandhan and it will run for nearly four months,” a senior marketing executive of Britannia noted.

Traditionally, Cadbury’s has been among the high decibel advertisers during the Raksha Bandhan season in the chocolates category and with Britannia also introducing a range of premium offerings of its biscuits range, the festival gifting season is all set to witness heightened advertising activity.

The advertising campaign which is being rolled out by Britannia comes close on the heels of its move to shift its media duties to Madison Media Group with an estimated business of around Rs 50 crore. Britannia works with McCann-Erickson Grey and Lowe Lintas for creatives.

Britannia Industries is also actively refurbishing its product range and is involved in upgrading its Marie brand in the east Indian markets. “We are also looking at a new form of cracker and also a salted biscuit format in the eastern markets,” the manager added. Sources indicate that once these exercises pan-out as desired, Britannia will roll out these products nationally. “We anticipate at least around 15 per cent growth in sales with these exercises,” the manager noted.

Industry sources indicate that Britannia Industries is also looking at actively introducing an energy bar product in the near future. “We had done a test marketing of this product in a small way in couple of markets in South India and depending on the market requirements we may look at going ahead with this product,” he added.