Magic Moments in high spirits

It was already a leader in the mid-market segment (priced between Rs 300-350) with a 78 per cent market share. Radico Khaitan’s Magic Moments vodka is now all set to top the mass market segment as well with a 40 per cent growth in sales in this financial year.

At 1.4 million cases, Magic Moments will beat USL's Red Romanov, which is priced around Rs 50 lower than Magic Moments. USL sources say Red Romanov is expected to sell 1,00,000 cases this year.

Raju Vaziraney, COO, Radico Khaitan, attributes the growth to a number of innovations the company has made in the brand. “In 2009, we launched flavoured vodka to premiumise the brand. Also most people consume vodka with juice which is high-caloried. Our flavoured vodkas give consumers juice flavour without calories.”

The flavoured variants of Magic Moments are priced 20 per cent higher than the regular vodka. The company has launched flavoured Magic Moments vodkas in six flavours: Orange, lemony grass with ginger, lemon, green apple, chocolate and raspberry.

Radico is now the third largest spirits company in India (sharing the place with Allied Blenders and Distillers), with United Spirits being the number one in volumes and Pernod Ricard (a value player) being the number two.

Reaching the top league hasn’t been easy. When launched in 2006, Magic Moments had to face heat from three other vodkas launched around the same time: Diageo’s Shark Tooth, Pernod Ricard’s Fuel and United Spirits Red Romanov. Both Shark Tooth and Fuel did not do well, but Red Romanov became the market leader in the low-price segment.

Post-launch, Radico invested heavily in the brand and did everything to grab maximum market share. In 2008, Radico chose Hrithik Roshan to promote Magic Moments. That was only the first step. Magic Moments also came out with a brand new packaging — from labelling to direct printing on the bottle. The differentiation, however, was a costly exercise as direct printing is much more expensive than labelling. But the brand awareness helped.

Industry experts say Radico’s strategy to first get into a price segment that didn’t exist and then gradually move to the premium segment is helping the brand in two ways: It is able to grow in volume terms as well as margins.

After flavoured Magic Moments vodka (premium), Radico launched a premium brandy Morpheus. It has Old Admiral and 8PM brandy in the regular segment. It now plans to launch a premium whisky brand. Vaziraney says that should happen in the beginning of the coming financial year.