This will be the first instance of a direct home delivery initiative by the multinational. "No where in the world does Baskin Robbins deliver ice cream at the consumers' doorstep. The plan is India-specific," says Allied Domecq Retailing International assistant country manager (India) Rajiv Varma.

The plan to start home deliveries is mainly to avert a possible sales dip during non-peak seasons like the monsoons. The business of the company generally witnesses a 25-30 per cent dip in sales during monsoons.

"We are also trying to make sure that our sales remain steady during the World Cup time when people will be glued to their television sets," said Varma.

Home deliveries have been the order, essentially with makersof pizzas the world over. According to Varma, however, Baskin Robbins will move away from conventional home delivery norms by being proactive in actually calling up consumers to take the order rather than await a call from the consumer like in most cases.

The Baskin Robbins home-delivery network will operate on a standard area around a Baskin Robbins store in any given place. There will be a centralised office which will take care of orders and deliveries which would be executed from the respective store, Varma said.

The company is hiring additional salesmen for executing the exercise. To initiate the process, each Baskin Robbins store is currently collecting data base of consumers in its area of operation. Consumers will be contacted by the salesmen to solicit any order that the consumer may want to place for the ice cream.

A special pack size of half litre and one litre ice cream has been created to cater to consumers through the direct home delivery route.

"These initiatives are being taken to getcloser to the consumer," said Varma. The company has projected a sales growth of 22-25 per cent from the summer initiatives in which it is investing roughly Rs 10 lakh.

In addition to the investment in setting up a home delivery network, investments will be made in other promotions like quizzes, competitions, special discount offers, etc.

Ambience has been chosen as the new agency to work out these modalities, said Varma. However, Baskin Robbins does not want to go in for a brand building image through an advertising campaign which the company feels is best done through the word of mouth.

Meanwhile, to rev up the mood during the World Cup, Baskin Robbins is planning to run a special world cup series of flavours in ice cream and will name them after the event of the day. For instance, if Sachin has hit a six, which marks the main event of the day in a world cup match, Baskin Robbins will name an ice cream flavour on the event.

Excise knock pushes up prices

Baskin Robbins is taking an eight percent price increase with effect from May 1, this year. The price per scoop of a Baskin Robbins ice cream will go up from Rs 25 to Rs 27.This follows the excise duty revision announced in the budget from 13 per cent on the ex-factory price to 16 per cent on the maximum retail price of ice cream.

"We tried our best to hold on to the price line, and even postponed the price hike by two months. However, since the excise revision is hitting the bottomline, the company has decided to take a price increase in May," said Allied Domecq Retailing assistant country manager Rajiv Varma.

The company took a strategic decision to bring down prices from Rs 31 per scoop to Rs 25 in mid-1997, which resulted in increased volumes. Since then it is only now that the company will be taking a marginal price increase.

Even as Baskin Robbins expects a jump in sales from other summer initiatives like home deliveries, it has launched ice cream candy bars at the price of Rs 10 and Rs 15, targeted at children. This, say industryobservers, is likely to have a direct impact on Hindustan Levers' Kwality Walls ice cream in that price range.

The company expects to post a turnover of Rs 14-15 crore this year as against Rs 9 crore in the previous year. Baskin Robbins achieved a break-even last year. The company has in all 140 stores in India and the plan is to take reach up to 150 stores by the end of the month and 200 stores by the end of 1999.

Baskin Robbins operates through a 40:60 joint venture between Allied Domecq Retailing and the Ravi Ghai Group company Maharashtra Dairy Products Manufacturing in India.