Auto majors on advertising spree;up spends by 20%

New Launches,Year-End Inventories Have Made Them Increase Expenditure

AUTOMOBILE majors have increased their advertising and promotional spends by more than 20% in the last six months,buoyed by a spate of new launches,year-end inventories and rising competition.

Maruti-Suzuki,Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have ventured into multichannel media advertising and online and direct radio advertising to boost sales and capture consumer eyeballs.

Global auto majors have raised ad spending by 76% during the third quarter of 2010 as the Indian economy promises to grow by 8.5%.

Maruti Suzuki India,one of the largest spender in the Indian visual media,has started a new campaign for its Dzire sedan this month in addition to the existing three Zen Estilo,SX4,and fuel-efficient products currently on air.

We have allocated around Rs 20 crore for our campaign strategy for December which is around 30% higher than other months of this year.We are concentrating on the visual media to push sales in this last month of the year to clear the 2010 backlog, Marutis chief general manager(marketing ) Shashank Srivastava said.

Other auto companies have also hiked their spends as they are looking at clearing their year-end inventories.
As the competition is intense,car majors have to be sure that the new product features are being communicated to the consumer,so that the brand recall is high, said Abdul Majeed,auto practice leader,PwC.

Hero Honda has increased its publicity campaign and is looking at starting new television shows under its principal sponsorships.We already have campaign running with MTV and Zee while new options with other TV channels are being worked out.We have started a new campaign for our best selling brands like Passion which went on air from this month, a senior executive of Hero Honda said.The company is also concentrating on the upcoming Cricket World Cup and has kept special promotional budgets for the mega-event

Tata Motors has also raised its spends for the Nano and Aria.The Mumbai-based auto major started advertising the Nano on TV,press and other medium to boost awareness of the small car which saw sales plunge to 509 units in November.
Utility vehicle major Mahindra & Mahindras ad spends are linked to new launches which is done through digital,press and point of sales at the dealerships.Our ad spends are also linked to maintenance level of advertising for the current products.Every 1-1.5 years we create a new ad to avoid fatigue among the consumers, said Vivek Nayer,Sr VP,marketing,auto sector M&M.