In the overall biscuit market, Britannia’s Good Day enjoys 70% share in the premium cookies category. Ali Harris Shere, VP, Marketing, Britannia talks about how the brand is striving to spread joy by encouraging people to smile more through their ‘Pay by Smiles’ campaign
By Neeta Nair
Q] What was the insight behind the ‘Pay by Smiles’ initiative?
The ‘Pay by Smiles’ campaign is an offshoot of our mega campaign ‘Smile more for a Good Day’. When we did the campaign last year, we were associating ‘Good Day’ with ‘Smiles’ for the first time. The idea did really well because we have grown by more than 20% in the last year. Good Day is the largest biscuit brand in India with 70% market-share in the premium cookies category. We sell more than 90 lakh packs every day, which means around 27-28 crore packs every month. Our penetration levels are very high. Good Day is Britannia’s largest brand and is thus very significant. Now that we have achieved so much success, the question was what next? Because of last year’s campaign, our brand’s association with smiles is very strong; thus, we thought of taking it forward in a bigger way.
Q] How did you execute the idea of using smiles as a currency?
Across the country, we noticed that people are so busy in their routine that they seldom get time to do things that make others happy. In this context, a smile is one of the simplest gestures known to mankind, transcending barriers of age, caste and creed. So, we thought why not do a campaign through which we can attempt to change the behaviour of people? We featured Deepika Padukone in the TVC encouraging consumers to smile more. We have tied up with Hypercity for our on-ground activity. We have also tied up with Snapdeal - any consumer can upload a smiling picture on their Facebook page with the hashtag ‘#smilemoreforagoodday’, and Snapdeal will send them a specially designed box of Good Day worth Rs 200. On ground, at Hypercity, we are selling special packs which has ‘for this pack, pay a smile’ written on them. All you have to do to walk away with the Good Day pack is hold it and smile for a picture. So the consumers can pay by smiles instead of money for a packet of Good Day.
Q] What kind of response did you get from the consumers this time and how many special Good Day packets have been sold so far?
The campaign is well-linked to our philosophy and is doing really well. We ran it from October 7, 2016 and aimed to sell a certain number of packs on the first day through Snapdeal, but we exhausted all our special packets in 45 minutes flat. Then we decided to get more packets because the response was so good.
Q] What were your initiatives on the digital forum and how much traction did you get on social media for the campaign?
There were multiple stages of our social media campaign. When we did the ‘Smile more for a Good Day’ campaign, the idea was to feed the thought that we as Indians don’t smile enough. In the second part, we urged consumers to smile more through a TVC featuring Deepika Padukone. We also made a digital video which had celebrities like Sonakshi Sinha, Alia Bhatt and Sonam Kapoor asking people to take a pledge to smile more for a good day. The third part was the ‘Pay by smiles’ campaign that we ran on Snapdeal and in HyperCity. In less than a week of launching the campaign, we got around 47 million impressions on social media.
Q] What is the marketing mix of the campaign?
Television consumed the biggest share of the pie because we wanted to reach out to a large number of consumers. We have spent more than Rs 10 crore already on Television and the plan is to spend more. The second biggest medium for us was digital. Radio was not used because we really thought that this idea was more visual than audio. Apart from that, we have spent a significant amount of money on on-ground activities.
Q] What is Britannia’s market-share in biscuits overall and Good Day specifically?
Britannia is obviously the market leader as far as biscuits are concerned, and Good Day has almost 70% share in the premium cookies category, so it’s a very large brand.
Q] How do you perceive competition, especially the relatively new brands like Patanjali?
Our biggest competitor is Parle in overall biscuits category, but we respect and acknowledge all our competitors, be it Parle, ITC or Mondelez. Even Patanjali has a proposition which is strong and they have made their own mark in our category as well. So we respect that brand too.
Q] What markets have been contributing greatly to the growth of the brand?
Good Day is a truly national brand. It sells across the country. Britannia has a very strong presence in the South, and that naturally extends to Good Day as well. So, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and even Maharashtra are very strong markets for us. Even the North and the East are reasonably strong markets for Good Day.
Q] Months after Deepika Padukone was made the brand ambassador of Good Day, Britannia changed its core identity to a smile. Did her fabulous smile prompt the change?
Good Day, a 30-year-old brand has always stood for happiness and optimism. If you look at the product’s advertising for the last many years, you will realize that it revolves around happiness. The risk big brands face is that their positioning tends to get a bit fuzzy over time. So, we thought of focusing on a really sharp idea using one dimension of happiness. We didn’t move our broad positioning of happiness, but sharpened it within a large space using smiles. Deepika was an ideal fit for the campaign because she is a national icon. Also brand Good Day and Deepika Padukone have similar values like simplicity and generosity, that spread warmth and joy. And this message of smiling more is very socially relevant and positive. Deepika herself contributes to a lot of social causes through her foundation. We have used her as a smile ambassador because of her personality. To us as marketers, brand thoughts are important. What celebrities come and do is amplify the thought. They ensure that the thought reaches the consumers.
Q] You have a unique property in your signature tune; how are you using it innovatively?
This is a property we have built over the years, and the tune is a part of every single ad that is made by the house of Britannia. So, every single advertising effort of Britannia ends with a ‘tin tinta din’, be it a TVC or digital piece, radio or audio visual. The tune always follows the content. It’s a big asset that Britannia has and we want to leverage it fully.
Q] How are you approaching the festive season?
Every year, around the festive season, we launch a special gifting pack called ‘Britannia Shubhkamnaye’. Apart from that, we have re-launched Good Day’s chocolate chips cookies with a much superior mix, it’s a very delightful product, and has a brand new packaging. We will start advertising it soon. We have launched another product called 50-50 Mathri Masti, a much loved flavour in North India. So this is going to be an active Diwali for us.
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