The Hindu Business Line : Domino's eyes maiden profit this fiscal

Having fine-tuned its marketing strategy over the years, the company is now concentrating on the twin objectives of offering the customer more food for less money and becoming the leader in the home delivery market. It plans to raise its marketing and advertising budget by 20 per cent to over Rs 10 crore next fiscal.

And while the company does not share either its revenue targets or market share in the Rs 300-crore organised pizza market, it says thata new product launch is on the anvil and the number of its outlets will increase to 100 by the end of the fiscal.

Mr Rakshit Hargave, Chief of Marketing, told Business Line, "We have earmarked Rs 2 crore as the advertising budget for the launch of our new product — the Double Cheeze Crunch Pizza — and roped in actor Paresh Rawal in a double role. Rawal acted in the earlier ad proclaiming that Domino's pizzas will be free unless they reach the customer's doorsteps in 30 minutes. We intend to raise our ad and marketing budget next fiscal to over Rs 10 crore."

Asked whether the 30-minute delivery promise has worked well for the company, Mr Hargave said that the "brand promise" was launched in May this year and Domino's has had to shell out 40,000 free pizzas since then! "But we have also seen 40 per cent incremental sales since May, so obviously this brand promise has worked well," he said, adding that the company had no intention to withdraw this scheme. He said the Double Cheeze Crunch Pizza is an internationally acclaimed product doing well in the markets of the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. Domino's Pizza India Ltd is a joint venture between the Bhartiyas of Jubilant Organosys and J. P. Morgan and is the master franchisee for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal markets. But even after seven years, the joint venture has not begun operations in either Bangladesh or Nepal and has only two outlets in Sri Lanka.

Mr Hargave said that while India is the master franchisee for the neighbouring countries and talks are on for appointing sub-franchisees in these countries, nothing has been finalised as yet. He said by March next year, Domino's would have opened four franchisee-owned stores.