kajol vouches for Alpenliebe in ad

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Confectionery major Perfetti Van Melle has re-invented its advertising strategy for India: it has shed its no-celebrity tag for communication. Now it has roped in Bollywood actress kajol as product ambassador for promotion of its premier brand, Alpenliebe. In its 14 years of existence in India, Perfetti has, for the first time, signed a celebrity for one of its brands.

It is apparent that the company increasingly wants to have celebrities promote its brands. However, Sameer Suneja, marketing head of Perfetti Van Melle India has a word of caution: kajol was chosen only because her presence was necessitated by the script. The hallmark of Perfetti has always been in doing the best creative.

The television commercial has an alliterating tagline, 'Laalach Aha Laplap', endorsing the fact that once you have an Alpenliebe, the desire and greed for it increases. The ad features kajol seeing an alligator in a zoo. She feed him an Alpenliebe, and predictably, the allegator follows her everywhere, yearning for more.

Suneja further quipped that so far the company had not used celebrities as its brands are salient enough due to incisive communication. However, there was a need to move the sales of Alpenliebe to the next level, and kajol was deemed as the natural choice. As a product manager, kajol will be the mascot of Alpenliebe TV commercials.

The TV commercial has been created by the advertising agency McCann-Erikson. It is left to the company's discretion to use kajol in events and packaging as well; for the time though, she will adorn the TV screens with the tantalising commercial.