By ANINDITA SARKAR
Indiantelevision.com Team

(2 July 2009 1:15 pm)

MUMBAI: Global fast food chain McDonald’s will have a marketing spend of Rs 400-500 million in India this year, up from last year’s allocation of Rs 300 million.

While 80 per cent of the budget will be skewed towards television, radio will be utilised as a reminder medium to promote McDonald’s and its products.

The company is planning to roll out 2-3 television campaigns this year. While Leo Burnett handles the company's creative account, Madison is in charge of the franchisee's media account.

Said McDonald's India - South & West director marketing Arvind Singal, "Presently, we are promoting our new product Chicken McNuggets aggressively across the Star Network. But we are also on other channels depending on the broadcaster's reach, programme ratings and, of course, pricing."

The other channels across which McDonald’s is looking at promoting itself aggressively include Zee TV and Colors amongst the GECs, Aaj Tak, NDTV India and Zee News in the Hindi news channels category and NDTV 24X7, CNN-IBN and Times Now in the English news channels category.

"We are also present on a variety of music and movie channels. While the music channels include MTV, Channel V and 9XM, the movie channels are HBO, Star Movies, Star Gold and Max," avers Singal.

McDonald’s will also be promoting the brand through various BTL and in-store activities. "Print will also be a part of the media mix, but we will look at initiatives at a much more localised level," Singal adds.

As part of its in-store activity, the company has entered into a global tie up with the soon-to-release Ice Age -3 wherein toys based on the movie will be developed by TMS and Creata to form part of the Happy Meal package at McDonald’s. "We will be spending approximately Rs 6 million to promote our new 'Ice Age -3' toys," Singal says.

McDonald’s, which currently has a presence in 40 cities across India, is planning to expand its outlets from 160 to 200 by the year-end with an investment of Rs 1.2 billion.