Cafe Coffee Day starts to advertise in print media

Coincides with Starbucks announcement about starting cafe in India by October end

On the day when Starbucks announced that it will start its first cafe in India, Cafe Coffee Day, the market leader in coffee chains owned by Bangalore-based Coffee Day Group, has started its advertisement campaign in the print media. This is the first time ever that this coffee chain has advertised itself during the past nearly 12-years of effective operations. The chain had largely grown exponentially on strong presence across India and has been long associated with some key events.

According to Coffee Day Group officials the campaign will focus on the eight cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkatta, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and New Delhi, where around 900 of its 1,300 cafes are located. A senior management official of Cafe Coffee Day said that during the past four months they have been changing the menu to include a host of short-bites and have innovated further with wider range of offerings. "We just wanted to build awareness for this and so this campaign," he said. While there was no numbers forthcoming on the advertising budget or how long the campaign will be sustained, officials at the Coffee Day Group said it will be short bursts to start with to test the effectiveness of the advertisement.

Started by Bangalore-based entrepreneur V G Siddhartha, Cafe Coffee Day has pioneered the concept in India and this segment was further grown by Barista, Costa Coffee among others. The coffee chain market is worth around Rs 1,000 crore and is growing at a healthy 30% per annum. According to Saloni Nangia, president of retail consultancy Technopak Advisors, the top 40 cities in India have 1,600-1,700 outlets and these cities can accommodate another 2,000 cafes in the next few years.