The Hindu Business Line : `Motor sports is towards 720-degree marketing'

It's a term that I have recently come across. In fact, we all are used to the 360-degree approach and therefore we tried to find out the real meaning of it. The best example that could define its meaning was Disney. With Disney you don't know where the brand begins and where it ends.

At the theme park, Disney merchandise is sold along with its rides. The company has got its own hockey team, called the Mighty Ducks, of which a movie was recently made. The movie became famous, in turn made the team famous, indirectly making Disney famous. Thus, everything builds the brand; it's not just expenditure that is building it but activities too. The latter can build the brand and generate revenue too.

Another example of it would be Red Bull. The company spends 30- 35 per cent of its sales in marketing but very little in mass media marketing. It puts its advertisements in video games, on racetracks; it has two F1 teams and sponsors extreme sports.

So our involvement with motorsports I believe, is the first step in that direction. Getting involved in the sport beyond being a sponsor, like the go-karting challenge ... . Now, running a team, building those capabilities, moving into more and more activities like that would all be part of the effort.

Another effort towards this marketing approach is Amaron Roadtrips that the company intends to set up soon. The company intends helping `groups' which would be interested in long road trips. We would help them set up the itinerary, the route, and so on.The company would help in logistics, safety and maintenance issues.

Today, globally, driving destinations are quite popular and therefore it is our endeavour to encourage more and more people to get out on the road for a vacation. The concept is driven to be self-sufficient and not necessarily profit motivated. It should be able to support its own activity.

Your initiative in novel marketing and distribution strategy is quite popular in the marketing circles. How has the progress been so far?

We are continuing to expand in the Internet kiosks and the two-tier distribution strategy. The initial rollout was very smooth and fast because of this approach. We were able to spread very quickly throughout the country, as we adopted the franchise approach as opposed to the set-up of individual dealers. Today, we have a chain of 130 franchises around the country - we have to maintain 130 direct relationships. Through them, we have access to 15,000 retailers. Our team works with these franchises, they are not totally isolated from the trade, they do pitch sales calls with the franchise team in order to expand retailer base. So it's not left to the franchisee alone. But the main relation that one has to nurture is that of the principal-franchisee and helping them do other core activities.

We intend looking at various retail outlets, be it shopping malls or general stores. From the beginning we have been looking at this marketing approach; we have an advantage, our batteries are factory charged, thus ready to install (something on the lines of plug and play monitors). Most manufacturers have a wide range of dry charged products that they ship out to dealers. Dealers in turn charge the batteries thus requiring space, infrastructure and equipment.

Our products are like commodities that can be sold through most retail outlets. Out of the 15,000 retailers, at least 50 per cent of them are being introduced to the battery trade by us. Hence, it opened up our options of the retail location of the battery as it doesn't require any infrastructure besides shelf space. As and when the changes in the retail environment start panning out, we will get into that retail trade too. Johnson Controls (US partner with Amara Raja Batteries) is a major supplier to Wal-Mart. When Wal-Mart ventures into India and starts developing the automotive side of the business, they would certainly come to us for our batteries. We are also supplying to Sriram group's `Hariyali Bazaar' and ITC's `E-chaupal' rural marketing initiatives.

We have been promoting our Harvest brand of tractor batteries through Internet kiosks placed in strategic locations across rural areas. Maybe it's a 720-degree approach, as we intend to focus on `low' mass media for the tractor battery.

We have about 40 Internet kiosks around the country, especially in the tractor belts fully branded as `Amaron Harvest Amaragaon.' The concept is an umbrella approach; each kiosk should cater to 30-40 villages within the vicinity of the kiosk and we have an Internet operator present for user-friendly access to the villagers. For content generation, we have tied-up with `Dhristi' (a non-government organisation). Thus a farmer can take advantage of its multi-features at a touch of a button, he can surf the net, send e-mails to his families, check prices in the local mandis, compare prices at the national and state levels.

For all this, he has to a pay a small fee that will be reinvested in infrastructure and maintaining the running cost. It's not a profit-making activity.

At such times, corporate social responsibility does not have to be different from business. It can be built into the business and into marketing campaigns that are generating benefits to the company and addressing the needs of the society.

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