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Sravanthi Challapalli

Diya Mirza and Vivek Oberoi at a Coffee Day outlet.

CHENNAI, Jan. 8

MOVIES, a tabloid, some do-good activity, the feel-good factor, a loyalty scheme and a regional focus - Café Coffee Day's strategy to connect to its main customers, youth, has had it tie up with various movie productions, launch a fun tabloid for customers, sponsor deprived children, and more.

Speaking to Business Line here today, Ms Sudipta Mukherjee, Head (Marketing), Café Coffee Day, said the company had tied up with a number of movies for in-film promotions. While the cafes have been used as locations for a number of films in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, they will feature in Bas Yun Hi, a Hindi film featuring Nandita Das and Channel V veejay Purab Kohli, to be released on February 14, and in Main Hoon Naa, choreographer Farah Khan's maiden directorial venture starring Shah Rukh Khan and Sushmita Sen, scheduled for release in December this year. In fact, for Main Hoon Naa, a set of Café Coffee Day was constructed in Darjeeling and the cast and crew were even served coffee from it!

However, what's driving the excitement right now at Café Coffee Day is its tie-up with the soon-to-be-released Dum, the Hindi film starring the new kid on the block, Vivek Oberoi, and Diya Mirza. As part of the cross-promotion, the two stars are visiting select Coffee Day outlets across the country. Also, the `Dumdaar' contest, which one gets to enter on ordering a specially formulated `Dumdaar' coffee, a strong blend of Hawaiian Kona and Monsoon Malabar varieties, earns the winner of the grand prize a coffee date with Diya Mirza.

"Movies capture the imagination of today's youth. Dum addresses the same target audience that we do. Our attempt is to capitalise on this synergy and bring today's youth closer to their stars," said Ms Mukherjee, adding that a similar deal was being worked out for Bas Yun Hi.

In-house research showed that after movies, it was sport and music that were other passions with youth, and these were areas which Coffee Day would associate itself with in the future.

According to her, for most films, including Dum, there has been no exchange of cash involved considering the mutual benefit.

The company is also in talks with Warner Bros for romantic or youth-centric English movies for promotions, she said. These would take the shape of on-ground promos linked to movie tickets and merchandise.The Beat, Café Coffee Day's monthly tabloid for its customers, was launched in October last year. The loyalty programme, which calls its members Café Citizens and was launched in July 2002, has amassed about 40,000 members now. There are around 6,000 subscriptions every month. The target for end-2003 is one lakh members.

Café Coffee Day, which is a division of coffee conglomerate Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd (ABCTCL), is also in expansion mode. The plan is to have 200 cafes operating by December 2003 in over 25 cities. While 50 per cent of its presence is in the South, the rest is spread over the country. Now there are 77 outlets spread across 12 cities.

As of now, there is no plan to use mass media for advertising, though there has been the odd occasion. "With over a million footfalls every month, we ourselves are a medium," says Ms Mukherjee.

Also, she does not consider other coffee cafes as the only competition. "It could be any other youth hangout, even the college canteen, so we don't benchmark ourselves against the cafes," she says, adding however, that they are one of the top two players in the coffee retail market. The other retail activities of ABCTCL include Coffee Day Fresh 'n Ground, outlets which sell coffee powder, and Coffee Day Takeaway, vending machines in over 2,500 institutions across Chennai and Bangalore.

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