Innovative ideas

SPARKS

Complan managed to scoop up greater market share by giving away huge spoons with every bottle "" consumers used greater quantities of the health additive for every cup and thus needed to restock earlier.

Now Heinz India is trying something similar with its health drink Glucon-D. The product has been repackaged in brightly coloured plastic sippers. The instructions advise emptying half the pouch of Glucon-D in the sipper and filling it with water. Which means a 200-gm pack finishes in just two uses, compared to the 10-odd servings a consumer would get if he were drinking the energy booster by the glass.

To encourage consumers to fill the sipper, Heinz has attached an "energy metre" to the side of the sipper that lists the calorie requirement of children and adults for various activities.

For instance, according to the energy metre, a child needs 79 kcal for one hour's study, while an adult requires 98 kcal for 60 minutes' reading. That requirement is filled by 140 ml/170 ml of Glucon-D. Will consumers drink to that?

It's difficult to sell hair colour in a nation that swears by the benefits of henna and believes intuitively that all chemicals are bad.

So German hair colour company Schwarzkopf isn't really trying to convince its end-customers that its brands are safe and, in some cases, actually good for their hair.

Instead, the company is working on hairdressers across the country, in the belief (backed by research) that most women consult their hairdresser before colouring their hair "" and in most cases, follow the salon specialist's advice.

Schwarzkopf's range of premium hair care products is available only through salons, so it's even more critical for the company that hair stylists and colourists understand how the products work, well enough to recommend them to their clients.

So this year, the company launched a special club for hairdressers across the country. Membership to the pH Club is by invitation only and next week Schwarzkopf will be flying all 150 members to an inauguration event in Goa.