Adani comes up with innovative ploys to promote its supermarts

Jyotsna Bhatnagar in Ahmedabad

In an age of freebies and hardsell and a market choc-a-bloc with upmarket supermarkets, the Rs 2,000-crore Ahmedabad- based Adani group has come up with an innovative marketing ploy to promote its chain of Adani Ravji supermarkets in Gujarat. Taking a leaf from Zee TV’s once-upon-a-time hugely popular game show “Tol Mol Ke Bol”, Adani is all set to make everyday shoppers visiting its stores instant celebrities even as they shop through a new Gujarati game show “Aana Kitla Apsho.”

To be aired from August on the Rathikant Basu-promoted Tara Gujarati, it would be the first-ever interactive game show to be shot live with customers in the Adani Ravji supermarkets in Ahmedabad instead of the simulated environs of a studio. The prizes would range
from daily lots to attractive hampers to a year’s supply of a number of fast-moving consumer durables.

Says Mr Vahid Ravji, co-promoter of the Adani Ravji supermarkets, “The idea is to reward consumers for shopping with us.” That may be so, but the ploy may also work well to lure away traditional Gujjus from the friendly round-the-corner neighbourhood kirana shop into the swank air-conditioned confines of one-stop supermarkets by making supermarket shopping more attractive and exciting. “It’s a matter of getting the customers to overcome their mindset,” he adds.

More than that, however, the Adani game show is also aimed at promoting awareness about its chain of supermarkets in a market where the supermarket concept is fast catching on with mini-supermarkets or “neighbourhood stores” springing up in every nook and corner of Ahmedabad.

What is making the going rough for all of them is the cut-throat promotional campaigns which each is launching.

So while Adani Ravji plans interactive game shows right in their supermarkets to add that extra zing to shopping, the Agarwal-owned AM:PM supermarket plans to throw in free vacations to exotic locales like Lokhandwala for good measure.

But what’s going in favour of the Adani group at the moment is the financial muscle and staying power of the group. “A bigger group can undoubtedly afford initial promotional campaigns and freebies without too much additional pressure on the bottomline while supermarkets owned by smaller groups cannot sustain themselves for too long if they have to incur such additional expenditure,” said Mr Manubhai Raval, owner of a small neighbourhood store.

That the Adani group is planning to be a long-term player in the supermarket arena too is clear from the fact that it proposes to expand the number of supermarkets in Ahmedabad alone from the existing three to seven along with five neighbourhood stores.

“This would be followed by a mega expansion plan for the Adani Ravji chain in other cities in Gujarat. However, parallel activities for expansion beyond Gujarat are also in the pipeline and we aim to cover the western states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan by the year 2005,” reveals Mr Rajesh Adani, director of the Adani group. Interestingly though, the group does not intend to make a foray into the overcrowded Mumbai and Delhi markets.

Adani’s bullishness about expansion plans in this sector is based on the fact that organised retail marketing in India is a concept which is fast catching on “because of rising incomes, purchasing habit pattern, availability of a wide range of products, ease of shopping and assurance in terms of value, quality and quantity”. Several large business houses including Adani and Nirma in Gujarat have jumped into the area of retailing with the objective of corporatising the
sector.

At present, the Indian retail industry is going through a paradigm shift from the unorganised to organised sector. Thus far, by one estimate, though retailing comprises sales which account for 10-11 per cent of the GDP, most of the retail industry has been fragmented and unorganised with close to 12 million outlets commprising very small stores or “kirana” shops with limited choice of products, zero usage of technology and virtually no ambience.