MxMIndia

Tag: Samsonite

  • Highlights the quality and durability of luggage brand

    Sania Mirza features in Samsonite ad

     

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    A post shared by Sania Mirza (@mirzasaniar)

    Samsonite, the luggage manufacturer, has rolled out a campaign showcasing a century-long legacy of excellence.  As part of the ‘Tested Like Samsonite’ campaign, the video features tennis star Sania Mirza.

    Said Anushree Tainwala, Executive Director – Marketing: “Samsonite products are not just luggage; they are a testament to our commitment to quality and durability. ‘Tested Like Samsonite’ is a celebration of resilience and quality. Our carefully crafted marketing campaign captures the very essence of the Samsonite – resilience and perseverance. This campaign highlights our strong commitment to excellence. Our ultimate goal is to ignite inspiration in our audience by showcasing the enduring spirit of each Samson creation.”

  • The 3 TVCs feature Amitabh Bachchan, Yuvraj Singh & Mithali Raj

    Samsonite launches new campaign

    By Our Staff

     

    Samsonite luggage brand has launched a new campaign ‘Tested like Samsonite’. It seeks to create common ground with individuals that have come face to face with the various adversities of life and is a testament to those who chose to rise back up and face the challenges with confidence and valour.

     

    Centre of Gravity, a strategic consulting partner, conducted extensive research for Samsonite to identify its core consumers and developed an insight into what these consumers truly care about. Following this exercise, the campaign was conceptualized which includes a series of 3 TVCs featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Yuvraj Singh & Mithali Raj, who have powered through several adversities at different points in their respective journeys. The TVCs will be amplified through an integrated campaign spanning digital, outdoor, and social media.

     

    Commenting on the campaign, Jai Krishnan, CEO, Samsonite India said: “Samsonite bags are made with utmost care, to ensure they look the part! They are aesthetically engineered which makes them extremely durable and offer differentiated functionality. Every Samsonite goes through several rigorous stress tests and that is what truly sets us apart. The campaign brings alive this aspect of the brand in a beautiful manner.”

     

    Prateek Bhardwaj, CCO, Lowe Lintas added: “The campaign cements Samsonite’s position as the ultimate benchmark when it comes to quality testing by drawing parallels with the challenges that each one of us, no matter how privileged, goes through in our journey.”

     

     

  • The communication not only caters to the audience with a new and exciting thought, but also engages with them at varied touch points

    American Tourister unveils latest campaign promoting brand promise

    By A Correspondent

     

    American Tourister has unveiled a new campaign that proposes the idea of observing and seeing one’s own city and surrounding better. With an aim to communicate backpacks as a feature in the everyday life of individuals, it was the right space to explore. The communication not only caters to the audience with a new and exciting thought, but also engages with them at varied touch points.

     

    Pallavi Chakravarti

    Speaking about the campaign, Pallavi Chakravarti, Senior Creative Director, Taproot Dentsu said, “Exploration is at the heart of all American Tourister communication. But while exploring comes easy when you pack your suitcase and leave town, a backpack is an everyday accessory. It’s what you carry everywhere on a regular day, be it to work, to the movies or to college. So our campaign blends the brand DNA and the product offering through an interesting proposition – Why not live the tourist life every day, armed with your American Tourister backpack?”

     

    The ad campaign has been shot in Queensland, Australia, in keeping with the international image and pedigree of American Tourister. More importantly, the locations were carefully selected to fulfill one criterion – each location perfectly showcased both, everyday city life and tourist-like settings. Additionally, care was taken to keep the location as neutral as possible – the philosophy of living every day like a tourist can be adopted by anyone, in any city or country, irrespective of geography. Thus the company zeroed in on spaces that could potentially belong to any busy city, anywhere in the world.

     

    Anushree Tainwalla

    Anushree Tainwalla, ED, Marketing – Samsonite said, “Backpacks are one of the fastest growing categories in India. Today, young professionals, college youth and students all use backpacks. While driving your bike or surfing on your smart phone, backpacks allow for a hands free experience. American Tourister is one of the biggest players in this category. The category already contributes to 15-20 per cent of our sales. With this campaign we want to remind our consumers that American Tourister is not just your travel companion but also your constant companion in your everyday journey.”

     

  • An exclusive interview with Suresh Balakrishna, CEO of Brand Programming Network, IPG Mediabrands' all-new agency under the LMG umbrella

    Making brand the hero with BPN

     

    Just when you thought that the media agency space is getting crowded in India comes the news of another agency setting up shop in India. Brand Connections that was present in 12 countries across the globe excluding India and the United States, will now be rechristened Brand Programming Network. In effect this will be the official launch of BPN in India. And simultaneous with the rest of the world. This will make the agency the third such offering from IPG Mediabrands in India. It already has two in the form of (Lodestar) UM and (Lintas) Initiative. BPN will work under the LMG umbrella.

     

    Says Lynn de Souza, Chairman and CEO of Lintas Media Group in a communique, “For media agencies thus far, the starting point has always been the advertiser. Consolidation, portfolio management, aggregation etc. are all client focused and to some extent consumer data driven. BPN will focus on the brand. The time has come to turn back several chapters and make the brand the hero of all communication effort, and BPN has developed processes to do just that.”

     

    BPN will take on the service mandate of clients like Jyothy-Henkel, Bajaj Auto, Samsonite, and several other clients of LMG to start up with a billing volume of over Rs. 1000 crores, in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkatta and Cochin.

     

    In India the agency will be led by Suresh Balakrishna, who has assumed charge as CEO of the agency. While BPN will be essentially a media agency, it will play the game differently by focusing on the brand. “Everything that we are recommending is going to be from a brand strategy direction,” assures Mr Balakrishna, as he gave MxMIndia a quick peek of what to expect from the agency in India, hours before it was unveiled.

     

    In conversation with Pradyuman Maheshwari and Johnson Napier, Mr Balakrishnan delves on how BPN will be different from the others, on the increased emphasis that will be laid on social media and digital and the new initiatives to look forward to from BPN in the coming few months. Excerpts:

     

    Is Brand Programming Network old wine in a new bottle?

    No, it is not. The usual answer that comes up about a third agency is that it is created due to a conflict of clients, allowing you to take on more of the similar clients. But with BPN, it is a thought-out strategic decision. If you look at India, there is no immediate conflict business (from network agencies) that is being parked in BPN. If you look at Mediabrands, for the last 10 years it has had a network called Brand Connections in other countries. But as markets have developed, especially a market like India, we find that there are enough businesses out here to have a third agency with a different character, a different way of thinking…and of course help handle conflict in the long run. So it’s not a knee-jerk old wine in a new bottle reaction from our end.

     

    The reason we ask you this question is that you have reallocated some of your existing businesses here. Does this also mean that Initiative and BPN could be in conflict with each other?

    It could be. In our system we can compete for businesses for the same pitch and may the best team win. Therefore we have a Lodestar UM, an Initiative and a BPN; we have three networks here in India and all three can compete for a business if necessary.  We do believe there is enough business out there and why leave some money on the table…

     

    What is it about BPN that differentiates it from others?

    A few things actually. Firstly, we are turning the clock back as an agency. We are going back a little in time and therefore the name Brand Programming Network. The whole idea is to focus on the brand. Earlier, media used to be in one house there used to be much more brand focus, even the media guys owned the brand. But over a period of time, media has become more professional, accountable, larger, etc but somewhere in the process we believe that brand connect has got lost. Therefore, BPN would be an agency that would focus on the brand; everything that we are recommending is going to be from a brand strategy direction. To give an example, in the last four months we have won over four-five businesses and in almost all the business pitches the client fed back to us saying is this a creative agency presentation or a media agency presentation? So you can imagine the extent to which we are spending time to analyse the brand, looking at brand strategy, looking at TG, etc. We are focusing on that aspect of the business and of course at the end of the day media is just a delivery vehicle.

     

    In fact Mr Shashi Sinha even hinted in an interview with us that we need to return to the full-service agency model. Are you in agreement with that statement?

    Half-way house, I would say. We are calling ourselves a full-service media agency in the sense that the touchpoints today have become all-pervading. For example, the touchpoint would be you ride on content. But who creates that content? You have an instance where the customer himself creates content in digital and then you have specialists who create content. So content itself has no owners and therefore reaching out to the customer has become that much more complex and you can only do it of you have the fabric of the brand and what it wants to convey.

     

    But the same thing could even be said by the creative agency bosses like, say, R Balki of Lowe, etc who feel that creative is alright but we also need to add some media to it. They could also be thinking on those lines…

    So what if they think the same, but I think at the end of the day to deliver media, you need a certain size… in fact many media heads today are CFOs; they are not media people. They have a commercial bent of mind and manage money.

     

    So are you saying that a media agency can be a full-service agency but a creative agency cannot be a full-service agency…?

    In today’s context yes, I believe you can say that.

     

    Sorry to be asking you this for for the third time in different ways, but getting back to BPN, in a sense it will be a brand agency…

    Yes, and across the world in the 13 other countries that we are present in apart from India, we have a lot of retail businesses and that is another area of growth that BPN is seeing. That seems to be the character of the agency globally – handling a lot of retail clients on a local basis.

     

    Will you only handle products and not brands in other sectors?

     There will be no category and geographical limitation. What the agency will bring to the table is brand perspective. In many cases, we have seen that clients do not want a brand perspective from a media agency. They get enough of it from a creative agency and want only the media bit from us. So I may not be the right pick. But being part of an agency like LMG I may bring along a necessary clout; I am big enough to matter and small enough to care. But that is not going to be my reason to be.

     

    In fact for BPN, one of the things being discussed is India as the analytics hub for BPN worldwide.

     

    Is it likely to happen soon?

    Yes, it is going to happen very soon.

     

    Wouldn’t analytics have done better as a separate unit like what the other networks offer?

    Maybe if it did well it could become a separate agency but to begin with it will be a part of the service that we are offering.

     

    Somewhere in your press release you have emphasised on laying adequate stress on social media. Is BPN going to be basically a digital or social media agency?

    No. But globally, and in India, I believe that digital and social media has much more mindspace than wallet space. So it really has a long way to go. Having said that, digital is growing very rapidly globally. One of the things that you will hear from us is a tie-up of sorts with a large platform about which you will hear soon.

     

    Will social media be the mainstay for BPN…?

    Not in India but worldwide, yes.

     

    So here you will be doing the traditional stuff plus digital and social…

    Absolutely.

     

    Could you delve a bit on the team that will drive the function for you in India?

    We have Premjeet Sodhi as the COO, Patrick Gomes would be the head in Mumbai, Mahesh Motwani would be head of Kolkata, Vidya Nanda Kumar will be head of Kochi…we have identified a head for Delhi and Hyderabad that we will announce very soon. We have a staff strength of about 70 and about 40 clients till now.

     

    Going forward, will BPN and Initiative be sitting together and pitching for a business?

    All the existing businesses in Delhi, Bangalore etc will belong to Initiative while Mumbai, Kolkata, Kochi etc will belong to BPN. We will be having separate offices which ever cities both of us are present.

     

    Any other plans on the anvil for BPN?

    Yes, we would be having a training and consultancy cell for media houses. The other thing will be branded content….

     

    Paid news?

    No (laughs). AFPs, in-film branding etc.

     

    You have always been a print man, do you still have a soft corner for the medium compared to television which is more popular of the two?

    Brands of course want television but I think print also works. Ours is the only country where print is still growing.

     

    But TV is growing a bit faster.

    Yes.

     

    What will the the revenue mix of BPN look like in future… if it’s 99 traditional and 1 digital?

    Going by your 99-1 yardstick, it will be 80 per cent traditional and 20 per cent from other mediums. Possibly even 75-25.

     

    If BPN has business worth Rs 1000 crore, how much will Initiative be?

    It would be the same. LMG as a group is Rs 2000 crore.  All the businesses in Delhi and Bengaluru belong to Initiative while Mumbai, Kolkata, Kochi are now part of BPN.

     

    In Indian corporates, there is a tendency to guard one’s fiefdom. Did Initiative feel bad you took away some of its businesses?

    They haven’t expressed anything as yet.

     

  • Saevus Wildlife, along with their anchor sponsor, travel products brand Samsonite, has launched Saevus, a premium wildlife and natural history magazine.

    Saevus packs a bag for ecology

    By A Correspondent

     

    Saevus Wildlife, along with their anchor sponsor, travel products brand Samsonite, has launched Saevus, a premium wildlife and natural history magazine.

     

    A two-day launch event at the Little Rann of Kutch saw sessions by eminent guests – Dr Satya Kumar –Professor, Wildlife Institute of India, Sandesh Kadur- Eminent Wildlife Photographer, and Subrata Dutta – Managing Director, Samsonite, South Asia. The focus on the sessions was wildlife photography tips, filming wildlife, mountaineering, wildlife conservation and the association of Samsonite with Saevus. Samsonite’s connection highlights corporate involvement in promoting wildlife and natural history along with a morning safari at the Little Rann of Kutch.

     

    The Little Rann of Kutch is rich in biodiversity and is an ecologically important area for wildlife. Many local and migratory water birds like cranes, ducks, pelicans, flamingoes and land birds like sand grouse, frankolins and the Indian bustard find home at this place.

     

    It has been nominated as a bio-sphere and World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

    Saevus magazine aims at popularizing the beauty and diversity of Indian nature and Wildlife through stunning visuals, and aims at uncompromising quality to capture the imagination of every Indian who loves nature, wildlife and the outdoors.The magazine will be available on stands and specialty bookstores from March 2012. The editorial team includes Sree Nandy-Editor-in-chief, Sandeep Mall-Managing Partner, Santanu Nandy-Publisher and Dhrotiman Mukherjee-Head of Photography.

     

    At the launch of the magazine, Mr Mall said, “Saevus aims at offering its readers a side of wildlife and nature they have never been exposed to.  We couldn’t have thought of a better place than the Little Rann of Kutch to unveil our magazine because here is where the idea of coming out with the magazine was born.”

     

    Subrata Dutta, Managing Director, Samsonite, South Asia said, ”At Samsonite we have believed in stepping out and travelling the world. When this proposal came to us we thought it to be a great platform to showcase ourselves as partners to not just travellers but the various medium that makes one travel. I am hopeful of the great response Saevus will receive and I wish the entire team great success on behalf of Samsonite.”

     

  • A strong client-agency relationship is vital for success, says Samsonite president, and sure enough the brand bagged Advertiser of the Year at Spikes Asia.

    Happy marriage for Samsonite

     

     

    By Tuhina Anand

    “The client-agency relationship is like a marriage where one has to work on it to make it successful. It won’t last long if the client and the agency are on two sides of the table. The key is to have trust and transperancy in this relationship to make it work,” says Dr Ramesh Tainwala, President of Samsonite, Asia-Pacific and Middle East.

     

    “Also, one must be ready to part ways if the relationship doesn’t work,” he adds. Wise words from Dr Tainwala, who has just received the Advertiser of the Year at Spikes Asia 2011 for Samsonite, the global travel luggage brand. The award honours a brand that has set itself apart through the quality of its creative campaigns while also encouraging and nurturing innovative marketing techniques produced by their agencies across the Asia Pacific region.

     

    In fact, Samsonite had won awards at Cannes and even in other categories at Spikes Asia, but this award is special as it recognizes the advertiser, going beyond the creative. Talking of advertising in this category which in India is often led by brand ambassadors, Tainwala said, “I think it’s a shortcut method to ride on a brand ambassador’s popularity especially in India where most celebrities too don’t follow any discretion when signing on a brand, and are hence ready to endorse anything from banians to paan masala, creating confusion in a consumer’s mind. We have used Richard Branson a few years ago but the difference is that internationally celebrities are choosy when lending their name to a brand, thus succeeding in creating a brand connect.”

     

    In India, the company has earmarked US$19.2 million (close to Rs 100 crore) on its marketing budget for the current financial year. The company, which works with JWT, spends almost 10 per cent of its revenue on marketing and advertising every year. In India, its campaign is mostly TV led and outdoors including airports and railway stations and some print in smaller towns.

     

    Globally the company follows the policy of fixed remuneration for a year linked with incentives for its agency. They also follow a core creative idea which then is localized as per the need of market it is addressing.

     

    Samsonite has two of its brands, Samsonite and American Tourister, in India, and looks at this market as being among its key ones. It has seen a growth of over 52 percent over the last year, which definitely speaks volumes about the company being satisfied with their performance in the country considering that the market in this category has been growing at the rate of 15 percent.

     

    Talking about their plans in India, Dr Tainwala said, “We are currently in about 60 cities in India and mostly in Tier I and II towns but our focus is to increase this number to 300 and we will also look at Tier III and upcoming Tier IV cities too. This expansion will be a step-by-step process in the next three years’ time.” Samsonite also is looking at opening close to 100 retail doors every year in both existing and new cities to expand their footprint.

    Photograph: Facebook.com/SamsoniteIndia

  • …but the winners made me believe in advertising and communications once again, writes Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer

    Spikes Sidelights | Not a spectacular night

    By Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer

    Finally, the grand evening, the Awards Night for Spikes Asia at the Esplanade Theatre. I must admit the evening was not as spectacular as I thought it would be. It was a laundry list of awards being given out. But the highlights were, as it should rightly be to see the presentations and films for the Gold and Grand Prix winners. That I must say, almost all of them made me believe in advertising and
    communications all over again. It was fascinating to see some awesome craft and design work in particular. They did let the imagination take leaps and bounds.

    It felt very good whenever `India’ won something and whenever any Indian walked up on stage. It felt good to see Samsonite win the Advertiser of the year award and an `Indian’ who was the Asia-Pacific head, Dr Ramesh Tainwala of the Tainwala Group that Samsonite has its joint-venture with, walk up on stage to receive the award.

    A simple man, simply dressed, humble to say he is not used to it, and who said the best of things any agency, in this case JWT, would love to hear, and ensured that the Indian arm Contract got a mention too when he was up there on stage. That speaks volumes about the person, and I guess a reason why Samsonite is such a big success in the region, they got the best partners in India.

    I skipped the party thereafter at a place called `Indo Chine’ I think, hosted by Leo Burnett. Thought I would catch an early nights nap, for we leave the hotel tomorrow morning at 7 a.m for the airport, and that is 4.30 am India time.

    Signing out from Spikes Asia… thank you, it was fun and a great learning opportunity in many ways.

     

    Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer is founder-managing director, BC Webwise