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A little luxury
Dublin-based ANTRA BHARGAVA
has been cultivating her strong links
with her native country to bring
Irish brands to the Indian market.
She spoke to Grainne Rothery
LIVING IN DUBLIN FOR THE LAST 11 YEARS, BUT STILL
DEEPLY LINKED TO HER FAMILY IN CALCUTTA,
ANTRA BHARGAVA IS NOW COMBINING HER
INSIGHTS, connections and experience in the Irish market
with the expertise and resources of her parents in India to offer
companies in Ireland a viable route into one of the fastest growing
markets worldwide.
It’s perhaps a measure of the family’s ambition and abilities
that the award-winning Cooley Distillery, which owns the Connemara,
Tyrconnell and Kilbeggan brands, came in as its very
first client. Bhargava, who initially came to Ireland to study law
in Trinity, contacted Cooley “partially because my father has
been visiting every year and we were introduced to Connemara
through a friend and my Dad loved that whiskey – he’s very
much a single malt connoisseur”.
“We’ve had an interest in Connemara whiskey for a long time
and we were talking about possibly doing business between
India and Ireland,” she continues. “So I picked up the phone to
Cooley Distillery and I was put through to the Teelings who
were very interested in our idea to bring Connemara to India.”
They set up a meeting to coincide with a visit by Bhargava’s
parents, who have been in business in Calcutta for decades and
have strong contacts in a range of industries. “They have all the
right infrastructure there so I knew we could make it happen if
the brand had the commitment.
“The discussion went really well and we decided on that basis
to give it a trial period initially to see if this marketing would
work out because, although we have been a business family for
a long time, we hadn’t been involved in marketing of liqueur. We
got an initial exclusive agreement for the whole of India.”
The family acts as the marketing agent for the brand and, as
such, brings the product to India, identifies the correct people
in the distribution business and educates them about the product.
“We’d talk to retailers, to entertainment/hospitality industries,
we’d create the demand in the market and the marketing
strategy. We’d basically be the brand’s eyes and ears in India.
“We were only doing it four months when we got our first
order. Our distributor has become almost a family friend although
we didn’t know him beforehand. We connected between
mutual contacts and it ended up that my father is now arranging
his daughter’s wedding. That’s how it works in India – it’s
Antra Bhargava, Indian actor Prem Chopra,
and Stephen Teeling, brand manager at
Cooley Distillery
very much personal relationship-based.
“Then we got another distributor on board and we now have
another mass distributor interested so things happen very
quickly when they do happen when you use the right channels.
The difficulty is finding the right channels to do business with
and ensuring that you pick the right partners early on so your
reputation is established.
“Once your reputation gets tarnished in any way or you’re associated
with the wrong sort of people, everything becomes difficult.
As it does here, to some extent. But memories are shorter
here. There, they stay for generations!”
The family has also recently added Irish chocolatier Lily
O’Brien’s as a client. “We have a commitment that we’re going
to be bringing them to India very soon. And I’m in talks with a
few other companies. Each company we take on we’re very clear
– it’s Irish origin, Irish manufactured, high quality, luxury but
mass market – in the sense that it’s middle class in India, which
is 200 million people, so we have a substantial potential market
there.
76 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 2 Spring/Summer 2011