Mumbai: Candy for kids and coffee for grownups. This is Hindustan Levers (HLL) new marketing mantra, while it is contemplating a major revamp in its confectioneries and beverages divisions. The FMCG major is planning an aggressive campaign to make its Max range of candies and Bru coffee the most popular brands throughout the country.

Max candies, launched in Tamil Nadu last May, have already become the No 2 brand in the state. The product has since then been introduced in the three other southern states and in Maharashtra, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh. This is HLLs first foray into the Rs 2,000-crore confectioneries market.

HLL has launched three different confectioneries under the Max brand: ChocoMax, candy with milky chocolate taste at 50 paise; Max Magic, a single candy with two distinct flavors, one inside and one outside, for 50 paise; and MaxMasti, a plain fruit candy with the taste of real fruit at 25 paise, the lowest priced in the market. The brand Max gives the candies an added advantage in that Max is already an established ice-cream brand. Max ice-cream is the single-largest impulse brand in India. Its extension to confectioneries is in line with the companys strategy to leverage power brands across the board.

Besides the strong-brand equity, HLL has a long and varied experience of targeting children through culinary and oral-care products. The company has been selling products in low-priced sachets, which are very similar to candy packs. The company has an unparalleled distribution network with 850,000 outlets. Of the Rs 2,000-crore confectioneries market, branded products account for Rs 1,300 crores.

On the coffee front, HLL has had success only in the southern states. Bru coffee has been popular only in the south. Its popularity is linked to the strong association it has with the filter coffee, which forms the morning cuppa of most south Indian homes. Surely, the companys campaign launched in the sixties to attract the south Indian consumers has achieved its objective.

Now, the company is all set to relaunch Bru in a big way in the entire country. Instant coffee that filters well with your taste bud, is the catchline of the companys nationwide campaign to popularise the brew.

The company also plans to install coffee-vending machines on strategic locations like airports, railway stations, restaurants, cinema halls, theatres and shopping malls throughout India. It has already installed machines in several locations in Mumbai and Delhi.

Coffee has been doing badly in the international market for the last two years. Despite a fall in prices of raw coffee, retail sales in the Indian market, instead of improving, have gone down by about 9 per cent. Bru has a 36-per cent share in the instant coffee market.

With HLLs new advertising campaign - Happiness begins with Bru - the FMGC major plans to storm the entire country and hopes to increase its market share. Already, the companys coffee sales have gone up by 10 per cent in the first half of this year. The company earned a revenue of Rs 1,046 crore from the sale of tea and coffee till September.