Wednesday, May 02, 2007

It’s not a new Lingo it's BINGO!

ITC has launched Bingo with a Bang! Just when you thought the ready-to-eat snack market was saturated with a whole lot of players, ITC launches 16 new flavours and makes you think otherwise.

The 4 broad categories of Bingo (Potato Chips, Mad Angles, Live Wires and Tedhe Medhe) each of which comes in 4 variants is colourfully packed and is a direct competition to Lays and Kurkure.

I picked up 3 variants (yup I have some junking capacity!) Paneer Tikka, Mustard Sting and Bindas Masal Chaas. New and interesting were my first reactions. What stood out were the names which were typical to homemade snacks that are unique to different parts of the country. Paneer Tikka is the flavor of Punjab while Mustard Sting is so Kolkatta. (ITC is based out of Kolkotta and I am sure they wanted to pay tribute to the people of the state and what better way to do it than glorify Mustard oil!)

After watching all the amusing communication built around the brand, I have been eagerly waiting for the product to launch. Just like the commercials I think the product is also quirky and kind of grows on you. ITC’s marketing pockets run deep and they aim to be the market leader in 3 years in a market that is growing 30% annually!

To keep their consumers well informed of their choices they have launched not one but 5 30secs TVCs, all at one go. Sunder Raman talks about tangy lemon pickle and chips between Tamil-speaking lessons; Spoof of Tele Marketing ads dubbed in Hindi with the same contrived enthusiasm about a product – unveils Mad Angles; Two friends are confused about 5 liars and Live Wires; or a ho-hum lecture on what flamingos have and do not have. And a CBI inspector clarifies the difference between the criminal Zango and Bingo Potato wafers.

They have launched a full fledged multimedia campaign with a website called http://www.bingeonbingo.com/ and also looking at the use of mobile and other new media. They also plan to build the personality of each flavour in future.

Yup, I am going right ahead and trying all the variants. What attracted me to the product was the attractive chips rack, it was a remixed version of all the other POPs we have seen so far. It comes with a zing, stands out and provides ample space for branding.

I am all thumbs up for the brand name, the names of the variants, the quirkiness, the packaging. True it would take a while for people to digest the all new flavours, but I am sure the risk of launching a product in an already well established market would eventually pay off.

"Bingo - No confusion. Great combination."

2 comments:

Insomniac said...

Well My Tamil speaking friend was talking about how the Tamilians would kick that Ad guy's Ass because of the way he's Pronouncing it..

anyway i got my pronunciation corrected..

;)
Pongo

Anonymous said...

their take on the tamillians has to be the best .... "vaango pongo illa" , nice add indeed.