At the fag end of the 20^th century, India's oldest cement company, The Associated Cement Companies Ltd. (ACC) found itself facing many challenges. Once the bell-wether of the Indian stock market, the cement giant had slipped from its position of market leader in many prime markets. Falling prices had touched the bottom line. Beleaguered by these and other problems like a worsening of the demand-supply situation and entry of MNCs into the market, it seemed that ACC would have to struggle to recover its former position of glory. However, taking advantage of a series of fortuitous circumstances and placing faith in its own capabilities, ACC was able to turn the corner. This article discusses the brand building exercise that aided recovery of ACC.

In 1997-98, the ACC salesforce and junior management was taken aback by a question posed to them by the senior management. Could they sell blended cement, especially Portland Pozzolana Cement (PP cement), at a premium of Re. 1 per bag over their 53-grade cement? Many of them responded with a stunned silence. The remaining reactions varied from outrage to amusement. The reason for these extreme responses was that the sales personnel of all cement companies considered all blended cement to be inferior in performance to Ordinary Portland Cement (OP cement). All companies that manufactured PP cement, priced it at Rs. 2 to Rs. 3 lower than their 43-grade OP cement product. No efforts were made to push the product through the retail trade channel.

Although, ACC was probably the only company to talk about the virtues of PP cement as a product, it also followed the general trend of selling PP cement mainly in the large projects and niche use segment instead of the retail segment. This came out in their promotion of PP cement, which stated that it found a general application barring cases where early high strength was a requirement and, was specially to be considered for use in dams, bridges, and other hydraulic structures, in concretes made with reactive ingredients, in structures designed to withstand attack by sea water and in structures subject to weak acidic and silicate attack. This was surprising because ACC also manufactured Portland Slag Cement (PSC), Sulphate Resisting Portland Cement (SRPC) and Low Alkali and Low Heat of Hydration Portland Cement which were specifically suitable for all these applications. These were marketed across India by a special marketing team. PP cement, though considered a general product and meant to be sold through normal channels of trade, was also pushed for special applications.