Business Standard

Exide, Pak namesake 'ad' it up

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Prabodh Chandrasekhar Mumbai
Team up to jointly fund advertising campaigns for events involving India and Pakistan.
 
Exide Industries and its namesake in Pakistan "�Exide Pakistan will jointly finance advertisement campaign for events, which would offer a common platform to Indian and Pakistani audiences.
 
The co-financing will include the display boards and hoardings at venues of cricket, hockey and football matches in the world.
 
Both the companies, before the partition of India, were a consolidated firm owned by the Chloride Group Plc of United Kingdom. However, post-partition, the firm was split into two different entities.
 
Apart from display ads, the companies are also looking at the possibility of jointly financing television (TV) advertisements in channels such as ESPN, Star Sports, Ten Sports, Pakistan TV (PTV), ARY, Zee TV, Star Plus, and Sahara. The TV advertisements will not be only sports specific but also at prime time events such as TV serials and music programmes, which are equally popular in Pakistan.
 
"Advertising together is going to be a win-win situation for both the companies, as there will be maximum penetration of the brand with minimum resources involved. The advertising would be done on case to case basis," said Paban Kumar Kataky, director, (Automotive), Exide Industries.
 
This is going to be the first instance of joint advertising initiative by companies in India and Pakistan, he added.
 
To start with, the companies have jointly sponsored Exide hoardings in the recently held Indo-Pak one-day tournament in Abu Dhabi. "In Abu Dhabi, we spent about 85 per cent of advertising cost in the tournament. Exide Pak contributed the remaining amount," said Kataky.
 
Kataky said the companies might also extend the collaborations to comarketing of products as the Indian company has plans to sell its products in Pakistan. "Battery exports are not allowed to Pakistan from India. If barriers are removed, we would like to have a presence in Pakistan," he said.
 
At present, Exide Industries enjoys 33 per cent share in the domestic automotive market, whereas Exide Pakistan controls close to 50 per cent of market share in Pakistan, although volume-wise, Exide Pakistan is behind its Indian counterpart.
 
Meanwhile, Exide Industries is increasing its manufacturing capacity of its automotive batteries to 6 million units from the present 4.8 million.

 
 

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First Published: May 04 2006 | 12:00 AM IST

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