The brand building and positioning exercise will include: a major hike in ad spend, opening of exclusive company outlets and strengthening its product line-up.

The company, which has so far been very low-key on advertising, with a budget of Rs 12 crore this year, intends to more than double its noise-spend to around Rs 25 crore next year. With the intention of focusing on advertising in a more aggressive and consistent manner, it has hired Saatchi & Saatchi to work out a corporate campaign to emphasis its strong brand equity. The campaign will run from March 2000 for three months, and then be followed by product specificadvertising.

Says Yasuo Ozasa, managing director, National Panasonic: ``With growing technological competitiveness, brands will be the key differentiators in the future. Here we have an advantage as globally we are leaders in both white and brown goods-a fact that has not been exploited in the Indian market.''The company is also gearing up to strengthen its retail network. Says Gurdeep Singh, who has been recently appointed director, sales, marketing & service, National Panasonic: ``The shopfloor is the ultimate battleground for any brand. We need to build a relationship of strength with the consumer and loyalty by strengthening our service network.''

With a current distributor-dealer network of 2000 across the nation, there are plans to open exclusive company outlets next year. To generate consumer interest the company will be working on innovative displays, in-shop promotions and creating an inviting ambience in shops. Future plans also include setting up interactive kiosks at the outlets.

NationalPanasonic hopes these stepped-up marketing initiatives will help it achieve a five per cent share of the CTV market by next year. Currently, its market share is less than two per cent. The key driver of its marketing thrust will be the Tau range of digital colour TVs that were launched in the Indian market on November 4, 1999. It expects the Tau to account for 30 per cent of sales next year, which will also see the range expanded to 14 models. New products will also include microwave ovens and futuristic audio visual digital products.

The company, which expects a 60 per cent conversion rate from normal to flat TVs in India, will also phase out its round picture tube TVs from next year. While globally this process is expected to take two years, in India a total phase-out may take longer.