Rina Chandran

EVERYONE is familiar with a situation of miscommunication, but one that ends happily, or with a laugh? That’s the story in the new ad campaign by FCB-Ulka for Mint-O, the mint tablets, marketed by ITC Foods.

ITC Foods acquired Mint-O from Delhi- based Candico, which continues to manufacture the brand, in March this year. Since then ITC has expanded the distribution of Mint-O in convenience (paan) outlets, and also given the brand the brand new packaging, new product formulation, pricing and the proposition, "Unusually cool".

It is currently available in two variants, mint and orange mint, priced at Rs 5 for the 20s pack and Rs 2 for the 6-pack mini roll.

The two-ad campaign was launched last month; one spot is set in an airport, where a young man without his glasses "chats up" a girl on the other side of a glass separator, and asks her to coffee by blowing on the glass after popping a Mint-O, and then drawing a coffee mug in the mist. He puts on his glasses and realise "she" is a mannequin. In another spot, two young women with shopping bags in a café draw a sad face on the window, and ask a guy for a lift; he happily obliges with his bike.

"Unusually cool" is not only a product proposition, but the film has also cleverly communicated it as a statement of attitude", said an ITC spokesperson. "The product benefit is communicated with the device of ‘missing over of the glass’, so it is also an unusually cool way of communicating."

Both are 40-second spots with 20 and 10- second edits and a 5-second promo tag, and were shot in Bangkok by Sabal Shekhawat of Mumbai-based Big Picture Co. The spots are being aired on a mix of youth-focused music, entertainment and edutainment programmes and movies on C&S (cable and satellite) channels, the spokesperson said.

The adult confectionery segment, valued at about Rs 1,100 crore, consists primarily of mint and mint-based lozenges, candy and gums; the lozenge segment, of which Mint-O is a part, is estimated at about 2,000 tonnes per annum, the spokesperson said.

The category offers breath freshening as the key functional benefit, and because the product is an impulse buy, sales can be influenced through distribution and greater brand awareness, the spokesperson added.

So the aim was to make the product stand out, both in its communication, and at the point of sale. As most mint and mint-based confectionery use a blue or green motif to denote coolness, the packaging for Mint-O uses an attractive mnemonic and colour combination, which is "distinctive, vibrant and contemporary," to reiterate the brand proposition, the spokesperson said.

The campaign, too, is a significant departure from Candico’s earlier "All mint, no hole" proposition, which was a take on Nestle Polo’s famous tagline. That was a reactive advertising stance, and ITC decided to give the brand a new identity, the spokesperson said. ITC plans to leverage its distribution strength and expand the segment with new flavours and delivery formats; it has already made a start with the orange variant of Mint-O, a first in the market. It also recently launched a second brand, Candyman.

ITC is a late entrant to the market and faces competition from such players as Perfetti Van Melle, Nestle India, Hindustan Lever and Joyco, but it will be spending "substantial sums of money in order to gain significant share of voice in this segment" and build the brand, the spokesperson said. The company plans to own "at least half" of the market in a couple of years, the spokesperson added.