Wheels within wheels

CAMPAIGN LOGIC

Satish Sharma

Apollo Tyres's campaign for its new tubeless tyre aims at building awareness "" but it's in for a bumpy ride.

It's being marketed as the next big revolution. But unfortunately, tubeless tyres draw more sceptical glances than knowing nods. Apollo Tyres is only too aware of that.

Which is why its ad for Acelere, its tubeless tyres brand, is intent on driving home the advantages of tubeless tyres "" and in the process, convince all the doubting Thomases.

Launched in end-2004, the ad marks a shift in strategy for the Rs 2,300-crore company. Until now, Apollo's been the market leader in commercial vehicle tyres, with about 60 per cent share of the over Rs 10,000-crore market.

The domination is even stronger in the replacement market. But the company's been less visible in the passenger car tyre market, where it has a mere 11 per cent share, while it accounts for 16 per cent of the replacement market.

Apollo aims to change those figures "" fast. By the end of this fiscal year, it hopes to increase its share of the replacement market to 20 per cent and grow the new cars segment by two percentage points. The current market size for passenger car tyre radials in the replacement segment is more than 2,75,000 tyres a month.

"And since original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are gradually shifting to tubeless tyres, the replacement market is expected to shift away from tube-type radials, too. So our strategy makes perfect sense," says Satish Sharma, marketing chief, Apollo Tyres Ltd.

Acelere is expected to make all the difference. An H-rated (a speed rating for 210 km/hour) tubeless radial, Acelere is available for a select range of B segment cars, while it caters to the entire C, D and E segment with a range of eight tyres.

What the company was looking for was a promotional campaign that went beyond just the imagery and speed aspects of tubeless tyres. After sharing the brief with a number of agencies, Apollo finally zeroed in on J Walter Thompson. The result was an aggressive, ambitious campaign.

As pulsating techno music throbs in the background, a red convertible zooms past a futuristic landscape, under a flaming-orange sky. Suddenly a wall of water rushes towards it menacingly.

But the water is splashed out mercilessly as the words "Expels water" appear on the screen, and the car moves on, even as the couple in the car maintain their serene expressions.

Other feats that the tyre achieves include "swallowing nails" and "ejecting stones". "Turn on the Technotread", says a baritone voice-over while signing off.

The futuristic ad may make you sit up and take notice but it begs the question: can a tyre really swallow nails and still run smoothly? And how can a tyre not have a tube?

"Myths abound about tubeless tyres; they are capable of all this and more. People are gradually becoming more aware of this, which is a good start," says Sharma.

Unlike ordinary radials that have a tube inside, tubeless tyres have a special liner over the innermost layer, which makes the tyres air-tight and seals them just like a tube.

The biggest advantage is that unlike a tube tyre "" which is vulnerable to the friction and heat generated between the tube and its inner surface and which ultimately reduces its life "" the tubeless tyre's inner layer is the tube itself, which means a longer life for the tyre. Then, it is also lighter than conventional tyres, making the ride smoother, less noisy and more fuel efficient. Importantly, tubeless tyres are safer "" they offer more traction on the road and there are no sudden blow-outs at high speeds since there's no ready air deflating the tyre.

The R&D and design teams spent close to nine months before Acelere was launched, ensuring these features were incorporated optimally in the new tyre.

"The biggest challenge was to engineer conflicting requirements," reveals Sharma. For instance, working on a better traction may mean you may just about meet the not-too-noisy limit.

He adds that market response to Acelere has been positive, prompting the company to consider expanding its capacity.

Apollo's plant at Limda, Gujarat, produces 7,000 tyres a day, out of which 1,000 are tubeless radials; it is now trying to optimise the capacity to 2,500 tubeless tyres a day.

Enhanced capacity is also likely to boost exports of tubeless tyres "" at present, Apollo exports 12 per cent of its total production, mainly to the US and countries in Africa, south and east Asia, where tubeless tyres are the norm.

India is a different story, though. Tubeless radials, as a whole, still account for a minuscule 1 per cent of the total market for tyres in India.

That's a telling statistic, especially since Apollo is not the only tubeless tyre maker in the country "" others like Goodyear, MRF, JK Tyre, are also in the fray.

That's why Apollo is working tirelessly at building awareness for its product. It clubbed the launch of Acelere with a three-day event "Highway to technology".

Over 150 of the company's top dealers, OEMs and media people came together on the recently-constructed 86-km Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway, driving Corollas, Camrys, Optras, Octavias and other cars from B, C, D and E segments.

"This gave us positive word of mouth because people drove cars on Acelere and felt the difference for themselves," says Sharma.

The company has also launched "Top Gear", a programme aimed at educating car service centres and car dealership service experts on tubeless concepts "" the advantages of tubeless tyres, how they work, what to do in case of a puncture and so on.

The road ahead for tubeless tyres (not just Acelere) is rather bumpy. Experts, however, promise that demand will rev up as more highways and better roads allow people to drive faster (tubeless tyres offer a safer, smoother ride).