The Hindu Business Line : Cos gearing up for Valentine's sales

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New Delhi Feb. 9 Love is in the air and quite literally so with a host of companies, ranging from sectors as varied as FMCG to banking, jumping onto the weeklong Valentine's Day celebration bandwagon, in an attempt to boost their sales.

"For us Valentine's Day is not a single day but a 10-day long event. This year also we have introduced entire ranges of products in both our formats, the Archies Galleries as well as the Stupid Cupid stores," said Mr Vijayant Chhabra, Executive Director, Archies Ltd. The company, in its attempt to be different, is pitching the day as `not only for lovers but for everyone you love'.

The Archies Gallery stores will see a range of soft toys and polyraisin items specially made for the event. The outlets will also have a Pink zone, where a collection of products in the same colour will be displayed. "Besides, there will also be offerings like `a box full of gifts' for those confused souls who don't know what to buy, and a range of the premium chocolate brand Five Seasons," Mr Chhabra said.

The company's Stupid Cupid stores will offer a variety of heart-shaped pendants and a scheme for women, where, on buying Rs 500 worth of jewellery from the store will get them a tie of the same amount free of cost for their loved one. The company plans to garner 7 per cent of its targeted turnover of over Rs 100 crore for the financial year ending March 2008.

Nirula's, the Delhi-based quick service restaurant chain, is also capitalising on the occasion by offering a wide variety of food items and also through various promotional offers from February 1-14. "We have introduced items like the Luvizza, a heart-shaped pizza, heart-shaped butter cream cakes, chocolate truffles, gift packs of assorted candies amongst other things," said Ms Sudipta Sen Gupta, Senior Vice-President, Marketing and Sales, Nirula's.

The company is also doing several promotional activities through the mobile text messaging and Internet mediums such as the LuvMetre, an SMS service that calculates the compatibility rates of couples and the lucky few who score over 90 per cent get to share a free meal at one of the company's restaurants. On the success rate of the campaign, Ms Sen Gupta said, "We expect an increase of 50 per cent in revenues from the 14-day period, over last year."

Other organisations capitalising on the day include HDFC Bank, which is offering a new heart-shaped variant of its gold bar in a 2.5 gram weight and Radio City 91.1 FM offering `Radio City Valentine's Day Surprise Hampers' through its interactive reverse auction bidding platform `Radio City Bid2Win' for listeners in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad.