Theme Ventures to manage Dinshaw Icecream's sales and distribution for North India!

Theme Ventures, a diversified BTL marketing firm , has signed up Nagpur based Dinshaw Icecream for handling the laters channels sales and product distribution for North India . The icecream giant from Nagpur , is all set to launch in key markets of North India in the month of May after several years of hibernation. Currently distributed widely across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra , Goa , Gujarat, Kerala , Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Dinshaw has drawn up an ambitious launch plan across seven North Indian states which happens to be the biggest ice cream consuming territory in India.

Theme Ventures with a strong sales and marketing network across North , East and Western india shall handle on an outsourced basis the day to day channel sales ,dealer management , distribution and product launch . In the first phase , Theme Ventures will kick start with Delhi NCR , arguably the most competitive among urban ice cream markets .

Rajan Guha , Chief executive , Theme Ventures , said soon after signing the marketing agreement in Mumbai , " We are witnessing a new trend in India where FMCG companies have started outsourcing the entire distribution process to professional BTL marketing firms . Retail distribution has over the years become extremely complex . In addition , an acute crisis of field force and highly polarized consumer behavior has made product launches difficult , unsustainable and complicated. Theme Ventures makes it easy for FMCG brands to rapidly scale up distribution among lakhs of kirana stores without investing hugely in human resource infrastructure and management processes. "

In the first phase of launch, Theme Ventures shall appoint 3000 retail stores across Delhi NCR during the current season . This shall be followed by cluster cities of tier 2 & 3 and submetroes . Dinshaw shall look at creating 1500 stores in smaller cities . Theme ventures shall also undertake an extensive shop level visual merchandising activity as an alternate to mass media advertisement .

Says Rajan Guha , Chief executive , Theme Ventures " Mass media advertisement doesn't show the retailer's door to the consumers . Desire is generated watching a TV advertisement . But where is the product available ? Consumers wont search for an icecream unless the brand pops its head out of a kirana store and screams to the neighbourhood kid , here I am . Unfortunately few brands in India still realize that doing up the shops with Point of Purchase promotional material is more cost effective than Television advertisement !"

Theme Ventures shall also undertake an extensive neighborhood marketing program for the icecream brand to create captive consumer base around the areas where retailers are being appointed . Besides a school contact program is also in the offing. The agency seeks to create demand through these two processes instead of resorting to large scale mass media advertisement.