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Shaw Wallace relaunches Royal Challenge

Purvita Chatterjee

MUMBAI, Feb. 25

SHAW Wallace is relaunching its brands one by one to show its commitment towards serious brand building. After Director's Special, its premium whisky brand, Royal Challenge is being relaunched.

As a step towards an across-the-board revamp of brand packaging, positioning, imagery and brand communication, Shaw Wallace has relaunched its Royal Challenge Premium Whisky. At present, the brand straddles almost 75 per cent share in the premium whisky segment.

The relaunch entails a change in positioning of the brand, a new advertising campaign conceived and executed by Ammiratis Puris Lintas and introduction of the brand in a hi-tech, internationally-designed monocarton with first-of-its-kind features. The ph ased launch is slated for March 2000.

Mr. A.K.M.A. Shamsuddin, Executive Vice-President, Shaw Wallace, said, ``Notwithstanding the high-voltage launches of Indian and international brands in the premium segment, Royal Challenge has witnessed a consistent increase in market-share over the las t five years. The leadership of the brand has been so complete that lately, competition has had to withdraw its brands from this segment.''

In line with the packaging of premium scotch whiskies, the Royal Challenge monocarton has rich black and gold embossing, an emblem seal for quality assurance and a pop-out panel at the top _ a device added on the carton lid which should be removed after opening the pack.

The side faces of the pack have also been carefully designed with details of the blending and maturation process of Royal Challenge whisky. These include visuals of scotch distilleries with the detail: ``The rare scotch is imported from the scotch distil leries and is then blended with the finest Indian malt whiskies to give Royal Challenge its distinctive flavour and character''.

The newly-designed and round logo in the centre of the pack, the `hot zone' with blazing red background is meant to provide freshness and vibrancy to the brand.

Other new features include a tamper evident cap on the bottle sealed with a hologram as a safeguard against counterfeit liquor. A neck tag in the form of a small booklet illustrates these security features of the brand and requests connoisseurs to write in their feedback to the company.

Adds Mr. Shamsuddin, ``Repeated surveys among Royal Challenge consumers have proved that the brand is perceived as `scotch with Indian price'. Therefore, the brief to the design agency, the Design Bridge of London was to create an aura and flavour of sco tch whisky for added distinctiveness and shelf stand out.''

As a break from the earlier positioning of `Power, Passion & Glory', Shaw Wallace has repositioned Royal Challenge as a `reflection of your eminent character'.

Mr. Shamsuddin said, ``Consumers use brands to express themselves. Eminent character sums up a set of values and attributes which a Royal Challenge connoisseur possesses or aspires to possess. The advertising campaigns have been designed to underline the se exalted traits of a Royal Challenge person by which we mean a rare capacity to take `more right' decisions than `just' decisions''.

The pack insert narrates anecdotes from the lives of famous personalities. The stories detail how each one of these persons faced a dilemma, a `royal challenge' in their lives and how in the end, each one, in his/her own way, took a recourse to an uncomm on course and created history.

At present, Shaw Wallace has a technical collaboration with the Glasgow-based Morrison Bowmore. As per the agreement, senior personnel from the distillery visit India frequently with the objective of ensuring that brand consistency of premium Shaw Wallac e brands is maintained.

Recently, the company relaunched its 35 case whisky brand _ Director's Special. It was repositioned as a `Mood Badal de' brand from the earlier tagline of `Chase the desire'.