JK Tyre has rolled out a Rs 4-crore World Cup contest titled `Champion of Champions'. Rolled out on May 3, the contest has been named after Ravi Shastri-- he anchors and promotes the contest-- since he won the Champion of Champions title at the Benson & Hedges series in 1984. JK Tyre has signed a one-year contract with Ravi Shastri whereby he will feature exclusively in all JK Tyre advertising and promotion campaigns.

Targeted at the passenger car radial buyer, the initiative has primarily been taken to widen the base of radial users in the country and also educate the customer on radial tyres. ``There's an absolute low awareness about this category. Consumers use radials only because they think it's fashionable to do so but actually they don't realise its benefits, '' says Neeraj Sharma, marketing manager,JK Tyre.

Pertinently, the contest is open to only to those consumers who buy a car radial from the company. The company is offering 17 cars -- Zen LX or Indica DLE-- as prizes. The contest forms, pamphlets and brochures carry, apart from the details about the contest, provide information about radial tyres: what's different about them and why they score over others. Why the World Cup?

``It's the most happening event at present. And such an opportunity can't be left out, you have to find ways to reward the customer,'' reasons Neeraj. Having decided that, the challenge for JK was to create a promo which would ensure effective publicity and be cost effective, at the same time. ``The ESPN packages are exorbitant, so we had to find an innovative way at a lower spend,'' says Neeraj. The company has therefore, limited the contest to only 17 matches -- the crucial 11 in which India is going to play and the super six matches.

The media package includes 35 spots a day on various channels including Star News, StarMovies, BBC and Discovery. Print ads are also being splashed in the major national dailies.

While JK is not expecting any dramatic rise in its sale of radials thanks to the World Cup promo, it does expect the event to: create more interest for the category; ensure high brand recall; and bring more equity to the brand.

``By associating with the happening event of the decade we hope to bring equity to our brand,''says Neeraj.

The initiative, is also noteworthy for the fact that it has been launched for the customer rather than the trade as is the convention in the tyre market. Historically, the retail strategy in the tyre market was basically concentrated on the dealer network.

Earlier, JK had launched a consumer exchange scheme for radials wherein it gave away Titan watches. The scheme, claims the company was a success in terms of increasing the market share of JK Tyre, widening the base of radial users in the country and also in educating the customer on radial tyres. Again, in early March this year,the company tried to come closer to the customer by launching yet another innovation: a Dial-A-Tyre service.