Giridhar Ayanur, Associate Director, Marketing G&C and Powdered Beverage, India, Mondel?z India Foods talks about their marketing initiatives focused at driving behavioural change in consumers and reaching more markets especially rural
By SaloniDutta
Q] What are some of the basic marketing principles you have followed in your 16 years with Mondel?z?
At the risk of sounding clichéd, the marketing gurus that have been here taught me that marketing is what helps us stand out and marketing is what drives the organization forward. Keeping the consumer at the centre of everything we do is core to the way we operate. Being focused on the brand objective and driving them to action. We have been trained to think about the kind of growth behaviour we want for a brand’s target consumer. As a result, all our actions are geared towards ensuring that the behaviour change happens. We measure ourselves that way too. Neilsen tells us whether we are successfully driving that behaviour change or not for a brand. This helps us take corrective action.Depending on whether things are working or not in 3-6 months, we keep correcting as we go.
Q] How has brand Tang evolved in the Indian market?
Globally, Tang has been around for a long time. In India, Tang has a high overhang of the global image therefore it used to be a highly aspirational and premium brand. Within the Indian space, the other refreshment beverages have taken up so much limelight that this sub-category, concentrates or powders, completely lost steam and there wasn’t much activity on this front. Our first task was to reignite interest in the category. The difference between other brands in this category and Tang is that others are in liquid and ready-to-consume formats. That was the biggest insight that helped us drive the brand forward. We introduced a pack which is conducive, the one litre pack, which we launched last year.It’s a 125 gms pack which exactly makes a litre and is convenient for the mother to just open and put into a bottle, pour water and put it in the fridge.That made us like any other beverage. The minute it goes into the fridge, everyone in the house while going in or out consumes it. That has helped us drive the brand forward significantly.
One of the advantages that we have as a brand is that it is considered premium and aspirational, and we provide great value, as our one litre pack costs Rs 30 and others in the category are in the Rs 40-100 range. We wanted to use this to our advantage and take it to slightly lower population strata. Our task is to get into smaller and second rung towns through our distribution structure as we are a reasonably well distributed company. Our rural arm has become strong in the last couple of years. We have an excellent rural distribution network in seven states which is helping us drive Tang into rural areas.Sampling is a great way to get people to experience the brand. We have seen that the more products we sample the greater is its acceptance. Now we do sampling across almost all states of north, west and south India. We used to be active for a month in summer and now we do it for three months.We are driving scale on this because our strong belief is that if you taste the product, you will love it.
Q] What is the media mix you employ for the different brands that you handle?
Like all FMCG, predominantly it is TV. We have a TVCthat has kids making Tang to demonstrate how easy and convenient it is to make. It’s on-air for the season. In addition to that, driving home the taste was one of the biggest challenges for us. Therefore we have taken up sampling in a huge manner. We have samplers across many modern trade stores and we call it the Tang Station. We also have interesting things like the Rocket Man where this guy wears a special costume and a tank with a flush, and goes around giving people a taste of Tang. The third leg is about reminding people at the point of buying which includes display material such as posters, danglers and banners. We do a lot of Outdoor during the season across all our key markets. We take up display shelves to increase the product visibility in 35-40,000 stores across the country. From reminding the mother at home on television to sampling at the store, to the point of buying, is all that we do to drive the marketing mix.
Q] What is Tang’s market share like?
We have been the market leaders in modern trade for the last four years. We have more than a third share of the total space. In traditional trade we are getting there, we are much lesser there but we are adding share significantly as we go.
Q] How do you leverage mobile and digital as a medium to drive salience?
Since Tang as a brand is focused on mother and small towns, Digital might not be the best medium for us. However there is tremendous recognition in the company that Digital is the way forward especially in impulse categories. We have done great digital work on Bournvita. We use Digital to drive home the functional advantage of the brand.It’s the best medium to communicate the ingredients, health and nutritional benefits, etc. We leverage Digital to talk to mothers and especially mothers of 2-5 years olds where we sell Little Champs.The mother is looking for information on health and nutrition for her child. We give information on DHA which helps in brain development and whey protein which helps build muscles. These are all messages that you can’t give on television.
Q] What is the next step with Bournvita and the ‘TayyariJeet Ki’ campaign?
Our belief is that the ‘TayyariJeetKi’ campaign is a platform for life so we keep refreshing it as we go along.I started the campaign in 2010, before I moved to Singapore. In a way I have come back to the brand after five years, we have been winning awards for the campaign all along. We just won in Singapore for the regional Effiesfor the sustained campaign award for TayyariJeetKi.
Q] Which are the markets that the brand needs to focus on for better reach in terms of distribution?
Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are three markets where we are leveraging our strength and where we are fairly strong. In other places, which I call nascent markets, our push over the last three years has been to keep driving width of availability and depth as we go into smaller towns and rural. We have close to about 5,00,000 outlets for Tang across the country which is good for a brand that started four years back.
Q] What differentiates your products from competition?
The biggest USP for Tang is great taste at an affordable price,added to that arethe benefits of Vitamin A, B,C and iron.For Choclairs, the USP is the chocolate hit that the candy givesat the end of chewing the product. Halls is the strength, the string throat, the cool blast that you get, again very distinct from all other players which are milder.
For Bournvita, if you were to draw a triangle and say that there is the mother on one corner, child on the other, the third is the brand. We have hit the sweet spot of talking to the mother through her heart and talking to the child through nutrition. It is a great balance that we have and I don’t think too many brands have that.
Q] What is on the cards for each of your brands in the coming year?
For Tang, right now the acceptance of mango, orange and lemon is high and since apple launched this year, our focus will be to drive it. How we do that at a level comparable to the other flavours is something that we are going to go behind this year.We are increasingly leveraging our strength in rural, so the small town and rural focus is going to continue and how we drive distribution through wholesale and keep driving visibility in these stores will be big factors which will get us growth this year and next year.
For Bournvita, the biggest marketing objective is to drive consumption among our core users in the north and west. Apart from that Little Champs, which is the toddler segment, is doing well for us.Driving penetration for that and reach more 2-5 year old mothers is the task we have set ourselves for Little Champs.Bournvita as a brand is so strong that a large number of people want to consume it but the price was on the higher side so we have introduced the Rs5 single serve sachet which is helping us drive penetration on the rural front. Bournvita also has a slightly societal angle as it impacts the nutrition of kids in a big way. So we are doing a lot of programmes to help mothers understand what Bournvita brings to the table and why it’s beneficial for their children. We have the Mission Nutrition programme where we have recruited 1,000 mothers who go door-to-door and convince mothers of the benefits of Bournvitawhich is helping us drive growth for Bournvitain a big manner.
Halls is strong in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and the task for us is to expand the base to more states. Sampling and awareness are the two big growth drivers for Halls.Choclairs is a universally loved product and has its strengths across the country. Driving consumption amongst our core users and leveraging our distribution strength in rural areas is the focus there.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Mondel?z India Foods Private Limited is a part of the Mondel?z International group of companies.Their flagship brand Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) is considered the ‘Gold Standard’ for chocolates.Their other brands include Cadbury Bournvita, CDM Silk, Cadbury Choclairs, Gems, 5-Star, Perk, Bournville, Celebrations, Halls, Oreo, Tang and Toblerone. Mondel?z India started in 1948 as an importer of chocolates. Since 1965, Mondel?z India has pioneered and enhanced the development of cocoa cultivation in India.
FACTS
Creative Agency: Bates CHI & Partners (Tang); Ogilvy (Bournvita); Contract Advertising (Halls &Choclairs)
Media Agency: Madison Pinnacle
BTL Activation Agency: Candid Marketing
PR Agency:The Practice(Brands), Perfect Relations (Corporate)
Social/Digital Agency: Grey Advertising (Bournvita)
MARKETING TIP
Be clear about what consumer behaviour you are trying to drive and chase that like crazy.
CMO FILE
GiridharAyanurlikes to introduce himself as a dinosaur in Mondel?z India. Ayanurjoined Mondel?z in 1999 and has been with the company for 16 years now.He has held several roles in sales, marketing including global and regional roles. He recently came back from Singapore where he was based for two and a half years. Currently he looks after the GCPP business, which is Gum, Candy &Beverages in India. This includes brands such as like Halls, Choclairs, Bournvita and Tang.
