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N. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, June 11

SAINT-GOBAIN Glass India Ltd will focus more on advertising the many products it has launched, now that it feels that it has established Saint-Gobain as a brand in the country.

In the first phase of the company's advertising strategy, since it entered the Indian glass market in 2000, Saint-Gobain Glass India focused on establishing a brand identity.

"The brand building effort has paid off. We achieved good recall value. We created a good brand image in a fairly short time. We differentiated ourselves from the others. The second phase would be more product focused because now we have many advanced products," Mr B. Santhanam, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass India, told Business Line.

The strategy would be a combination of direct marketing and of press advertisements, he said. Without divulging the adspend, he said that it was not "very significant". "We were fairly astute in our media spend," he said and added that Lowe Lintas would continue to handle the company's account.

Mr Santhanam said that the company had significantly expanded its product range. In mid-2002, it introduced special green glass for the automotive and building industries. The advantage of green glass was that it cut down heat by almost 40 per cent and at the same time allowed 90 per cent light transmission. Saint-Gobain viewed it as a long-term product and was trying to popularise its use in high-rise buildings and apartments, where air-conditioning had become the norm. Saint-Gobain Glass India had taken the example of Korea, which had witnessed an explosive growth in the use of green glass in the building industry, whereas it was traditionally used in the automotive industry.

He said that the company also made what he called a significant breakthrough product last year. Traditionally, reflective glasses were made in higher thicknesses and in larger sizes. But, Saint-Gobain Glass India followed the example of FMCG companies - that of shrinking the pack sizes and making a product more affordable to a larger number of people. "We introduced the same kind of coating (for reflective glass) at lower thicknesses and introduced in small pack sizes as well. We virtually invented this market."

He said the generic need for the product was there, but there were no appropriate products.

All the products in the market were aimed at larger buildings and commercial complexes. But, smaller residential and office buildings too had a need for this product. The company exploded the market with this product, which alone contribute to more than 5 per cent of sales in tonnage terms.

Saint-Gobain Glass India took the basic product, did a lot of process R&D and reverse engineering, localised it to the needs of the market here, not just in terms of the product size and thickness, but also in terms of packaging and logistics. As a result of this locally adapted reflective glass, within the Saint-Gobain group, the Indian subsidiary of the French multinational had become the largest producer of the reflectasol range, which was one range of solar control glasses.

Mr Santhanam said that this market was growing despite the product being priced 80 per cent higher than the clear glass.

To a question, he said that Saint-Gobain Glass India was trying to have synergies with Saint-Gobain Sekurit, which was 80 per cent owned by Saint-Gobain.

While the former manufactured a range of float glass, Saint-Gobain Sekurit processed glass, mainly for the automotive industry.

Declining to comment on a possible merger of the two companies, all that Mr Santhanam would say was that "at the moment we are looking at more management synergies".

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