the shift of focus at bausch and lomb is eyecatching the makers of the coveted ray ban brand of sunglasses are now concentrating on hardselling soft lenses to a whole new generation writes dileep athavale see better look better feel better that is the message and the recipient as you mustve guessed is the indias young generation eyecare solutions company bausch lomb naturally is going to college campuses with the message cultivating customers of a lifetime for its contact lens business luckily for them they received a fillip when miss universe yukta mookhey declared how her confidence level shot up once she switched to contact lenses they followed it up quickly with a print campaign banking on the need for the focus group age 16 to 25 to look good feel good in the ad a young girl says it was my first date and i had the right contacts to give me confidence i was ready for eye contact with himand the world and its not just teenage girls today preteenagers collegiates graduates and even young pros appearing for job interviews are concerned about having to wear spectacles the limitations of hard lenses severely limited the popularity of contact lenses till not too long ago in fact the earliest misgivings about wearing contact lenses began with rumours that they result in loss of sight having to wear glasses was always a negative feeling in indian society recalls jugesh pal singh bausch lombs vice president vision care division things are however changing and marketers of the new millennium are addressing the aspirations of a young generation projecting their products as fashion statements also the need for vision correction no longer carries a stigma it once did the introduction of soft lenses has tremendously helped here as it takes away all the botherations of maintenance in fact with the introduction of colour lenses one could choose a pair most suitable for an occasion ever since it entered india in 1992 bausch lomb has single handedly pushed the cause of contact lenses and deserves the credit for expanding the market to nearly 700000 pairs in india taking a different approach to marketing its products the company has been presenting lenses as a solution which combines vision care convenience and style but when it comes to addressing youngsters it is also offering genuine help so you have campus demonstrations and confident look roadshows in colleges in metros and minimetros like pune to go with its aggressive pitch bausch lomb has entered into an arrangement with the publishers of cosmopolitan magazine which dares you to participate are you up to it college girls stand to get a picture of themselves as it would appear on the cover of the cosmopolitan but this effort is not cosmetic explains singh what we are doing is asking them to participate in the show get their eyes checked and get vision advice besides the picture singh asserts that the response has been very encouraging