Cheap - it's fashionable

To develop an expensive brand, originally not designed for regular consumption, in a crisis is an inadmissible luxury.
Bat Russia is going to significantly reduce the price of its super -premium product: since September, Vogue Ephemere cigarettes have been cheaper by 20 rubles: from the current 85 to 65 . The brand launched a year ago was designed for trendsetters - so that the packaging designed by French artists remains a “fashionable” addition to the image, it was updated every six months.
Few were ready to pay for the “image” - the share of Vogue Ephemeere compared to the first half of 2008 is stable and amounts to 0.1% of the premium segment. Now, hoping in Bata, the brand will attract a wider and constant audience with a “new” cost - before that it was bought from case to case.
This year, the tobackers first encountered a forgotten phenomenon - the consumer began to switch to cheaper stamps. Moreover, the Russians began to smoke less: according to Nielsen, in the first seven months of 2009, the volume of the tobacco market decreased by 4.7%.

Premium with a discount

Examples when the manufacturer significantly reduced the price in the name of increasing sales for the same tobacco in abundance: the most visual - with Winston cigarettes. In the early 2000s, the brand that positions itself in the premium segment sank in Sredninova, sharply increasing its market share from 0.5% to 5.4%. Since then, the brand has only grew up - now Winston is the absolute leader in sales, occupying 10% of the market. Philip Morris with Muratti tried to repeat the success of the competitor: in October 2004-a year after the launch-the product fell from 25 rubles to 17, which in November-December made it possible to increase the shipment of more than 300% compared to the same period of 2003. The BAT Russia itself has a similar experience: for example, the Alliance brand, launched in the Russian market in 2001 at a price of 9.5 rubles, took less than 1% of the market by 2002, without rising above this level. The price adjusted by 2 rubles allowed Alliance for a year to rise to 4% of the market in volume. But Vogue Ephemeere is not going to go to another price segment, remaining within the framework of the “superpremium” - therefore, the target audience of the brand does not expand, it simply becomes more affordable for it, which means that a significant increase in brand sales is unlikely to occur . In “fat times” this step would be called risky-after all, it is important that the buyer understands that the quality does not change with the price tag, and they consider it “justified” in the crisis : today even mods are increasingly thinking about the fact that “image is nothing” , and the high-profit audience reacts to the attractive prices of premium products no worse than the rest.

Passion for calculation

The Russians, generally famous for the crisis with love for new products and spontaneous purchases, which the manufacturers of goods loved to play much more prudent: the July global study of Synovate showed that 39% of fellow citizens began to pay attention to the price tags when buying food, 45% - to compare the cost of products before making a choice. Only 6% of Russians against 23% in August last year spend more on Luxury. At the same time, as for cigarettes who want to switch to new ones - cheaper - now 10%. In other markets, the companies are already reaping the fruits of their generosity: for example, Danone, in the first half of the year, significantly reducing the prices of some types of products, increased the sale of the entire line by 1.6% compared to the same period of 2008, and profit 7.6% to 772 million euros. And the British network of JD Wetherspoon pubs, who decided to support the crisis of its visitors, throwing the prices for the Greene King and San Miguel beer in January to the lowest values ​​over the past 20 years - from 3.20 pounds up to 99 pence - completely “thundered” for all England: 400 newspapers throughout the country, and in the first two weeks, and already in the first two weeks The institution managed to increase income by 6%.