MTR to launch new ad campaign

MTR, a leader in snack mixes category, underwent a brand rejig in 2003, which saw it get a shiny new logo and its products smartly packaged. However, its advertising remained more or less predictable. The ad campaign reflected the conservative image that the company had.

Recently it approached Ogilvy & Marther (O&M), Bangalore to create a new ad campaign for its product. The job was simple "� to do something different.

Being market leaders in the snack mixes category gave MTR tremendous leverage to risk doing something different with their advertising, which is exactly what it did.

The result is what will hit the TV screens on Friday evening. The first ad is for the newly launched Upma mix, but the basic theme of incredible food makes incredible things happen will remain constant in all subsequent advertising for other products and across other media as well.

"People are familiar with our product and I wanted to create something new that people would not soon forget," says Sadananda Maiya, chairman, MTR Foods. Kapil Arora, management supervisor at O&M who has worked with MTR, says this time around the focus was on the great taste aspect and as long as the storyline stayed simple, the normally conservative company had no problems with how bizarre the concept was.

Both the company and ad agency are convinced that the new campaign will break through the existing clutter in food advertising and catch the consumers' fancy.

Although Maiya admits that the target of a Rs 500 crore revenue by 2006 that they were targeting seems a little hard with their current revenues touching Rs 130-135 crore, Maiya sees their exports division growing substantially.

"Exports currently contribute around 10 per cent to our revenue, but this should increase soon as we are also looking at other non-traditional markets," said Maiya. Other than that, the company also has a few new products planned for India which would be launched in a few months time.