Selling cigarettes leads ITC to a "Smoking" Strategy

ITC plans launching one or more mass products to grow personal care and food businesses - The Economic Times: "When ITC forayed into lifestyle retailing and the stationery segments a decade ago, it did so with premium brands 'Paperkraft' notebooks and 'Wills Sport' apparel range and then launched mass-appeal brands 'Classmate' notebooks and 'John Players' menswear. The strategy paid off. Today, ITC tops the notebook market in the country and is a major player in apparel.

Now, the tobacco-to-hotel conglomerate wants to replicate this top-down strategy-of entering a segment with a top-end brand and then launching one or more mass products-to grow its personal care and food businesses.

'Indian consumers love premium and imported products. If we had started from the bottom-end of the market, consumers would have never accepted us when we entered the premium segment,' says ITC Executive Director Kurush N Grant."