With the launch of a blue coloured model, M&M has broken away from its traditional colour of red for its tractors. With the Eicher Tractor model also flaunting a blue colour, industry observers expect a major clamour in the newly-created segment of 25 HP tractors.

Says M&M's senior general manager, strategy and product development, Farm Equipment Sector, Soumitro Mukherji:``We wanted to use colour as a differentiative marketing mix.''

While price-wise, the Eicher model has an edge, costing Rs 1.85 lakh, as compared to Rs 1.95 lakh for the M&M model, Mukherji says the Mahindra 255 DI has better product features in terms of better fuel efficiency in field operations and water pulley operations ... whichspeaks for its premium price.

``In February 1999, the Mahindra 255 DI was test launched in Haryana. This state was chosen as the launch market as it has a large concentration of 25 HP tractors and also formidable competition in the category,'' says Pradeep G Thadani from the Strategy and Product Management Group, who headed the Haryana launch.

The nationwide launch will cover five states - Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana. The company is not looking at the South, as this market cannot be serviced with small HP tractors due to hard soil conditions.

Mahindra 255 DI has been positioned as a `small tractor with the features of a big tractor.' Along with a press ad campaign, created by PSL Ericsson, the Haryana launch used banners and posters with the same base-line. With the nationwide launch, the company is considering an extension of the press ad campaign into film ads through van operations.

According to PSL Ericsson's managing director Vinod Nair: ``Starting with Haryana, theaudio-visual vans will move across the villages showing the film, depending on each region's media sensitivity.'' With so much action, the company targets to achieve a 20 per cent market share by March 2001.Marketing strategy

Mahindra 255 DI was launched at 200 villages, serviced by 7 dealers of the company. Moving away from the conventional norm of showcasing a new product in the dealer showroom, the company has reached out directly to a select set of customers through the route of rural events.

The Mahindra 255 DI was launched using the idiom of an election campaign. The launch campaign was conducted in two parts, the first part consisted of a teaser campaign which warned the farmers of an impending Blue Revolution without any revelation of the product or the company. This was done in various rural communities with the objective of creating curiosity and entertainment among rural folk, and urging them to elect the Blue contestant.

The second part of the launch campaign was the Election Convoy, whichconsisted of a convoy of two jeeps and an open truck carrying the new tractor. The purpose of the convoy was to herald the arrival of the new candidate at every village and create product awareness. This was to communicate the key benefits of the product to the community. The entire convoy bore the Blue Revolution look, by use of blue banners and flags to decorate the convoy along with canvassers who were dressed in blue. Besides the visual stimuli, the media for communication included announcements, leaflets and banners at each village. A demonstration of the tractor was carried out in individual farmer's farm.

The campaign was followed by formal launch ceremonies at each of the dealerships, for which prior invitations were sent to key target consumers in every village. Invitees were selected on the basis of certain filter criteria so as to reach out to the target segment -- farmers with 6-15 acres of land holdings.

The launch ceremony was used as a platform to introduce the product. Workingdemonstrations of the product were used to convince the customers about the product's superiority. Farmers were educated in the usage of superior implements. Every ceremony also had a `Ragi' - folk music popular in Haryana. The launch had all the ingredients of a cutting edge product launch strategy that is normally seen in the more market savvy FMCG or consumer durables market. And with very tangible results, too: In Haryana alone, 85 tractors have been sold since launch and 20 more have been booked.