CEAT: Handle Your Coffee Firmly

The on-ground campaign with Café Coffee Day aims to promote the superior grip of CEAT tyres and address road discipline issues.

After undergoing a major re-branding exercise in 2008, the tyre manufacturing company, CEAT is out with a television campaign to promote its range of bike tyres. To support the campaign, whose baseline is 'Be Idiot Safe', the company has launched an on-ground activity with India's largest café chain, Café Coffee Day. The coffee chain was chosen for the activity, as the company shares its target audience.

The creative idea behind the campaign is that the roads are full of idiots, who do not follow road discipline and prove fatal for everyone else. Since these idiots cannot be taken off the road and must be dealt with everyday, your tyres should have a superior grip to enable you to stop at will and save yourself. Based on this insight, the campaign promotes the better road grip feature of CEAT bike tyres. The company, which has added new products to the bike tyres category, claims that its tyres have better wet grip, excellent steering control and excellent handling at high speed.

The company launched a teaser campaign last month, where coffee mugs at Café Coffee Day were branded with traffic pictures and the baseline, 'Be Idiot Safe'. The teaser campaign ran for about 45 days, which was followed by a revealer campaign.

CEAT used various props, such as grips for phone and mugs, to highlight the superior grip of the tyres. Additionally, branded arches were used to create visibility.

In the revealer campaign, the company branded about 1-2 lakh mugs. Tyre-like directional cuts were used on the handles and at the bottom of the mugs to highlight the superior grip feature.

This campaign was conducted in 152 outlets across the country. It began on November 12 and would continue for about a month.

With this campaign, CEAT aims at increasing its market share, which currently stands at 14 per cent in the two-wheeler tyre segment. "This is a very high growth product category and we are looking at increasing our market share," says Arnab Banerjee, executive director - operations, CEAT.

He adds that the overall size of the industry is growing fast. The two-wheeler tyre market is about 3 million, with 1.5-1.6 million in replacement.

He says, "The market is growing by 20-25 per cent; we expect to grow by almost 40-45 per cent in terms of volumes."

The company expects the growth to come from its Category 1 markets, which contribute about 35-45 per cent towards the overall growth of the company. These include Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and other Tier 2 markets, including Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Bhubaneshwar.

Banerjee says, "The demand for two-wheeler tyres has gone up, as people have more choice. Bike launches are also multiplying; new players are coming in, such as Mahindra and Honda, which fuel the demand for the segment."

The TV-led campaign is also supported by digital. The company has also taken the initiative of spreading awareness about road etiquette. For this, it has launched a website, www.beidiotsafe.com, to showcase bad driving, traffic violations and dangerous road habits. The objective of this social initiative is to acquaint the visitor with different types of idiots, who do not follow road etiquette and traffic rules and regulations.

"Companies are increasingly adopting cause-based marketing, as it helps the brand, as well as society at large. We felt that there is a need to address the road discipline issue, as India scores the highest globally when it comes to road accident deaths," adds Banerjee.