With the focus on maintaining a dominant position in the soft drink concentrate market in India, Piruz Khambatta, Chairman and Managing Director, Rasna Private Limited is driving the brand through innovative products, new packaging and relevant communication
Q] What is your current marketing strategy for Rasna? What are you doing in terms of taking your brand forward?
We are a complete consumer driven company and our idea is to ensure that we do things that consumer want. Every year we conduct consumer research. We have divided our consumers in three segments— rural which are small towns, medium towns and metros. And within each of these segments we have various classes. Keeping in mind all of these segments we have the largest offering of powder concentrates in the world and probably the largest production capacity. We’ve got a product which gives two glasses at Re 1 for the rural consumer and one glass for Rs 5 for the urban consumer. Our research helps us in understanding all these separate groups based on which we come out with various innovations in product quality, marketing mix and advertising mix. We want to appeal to all of India which includes all of these separate groups. Our advertising also always needs to stay relevant with time.
A lot of people are tempted to tell me to run our old commercial (I love you Rasna) and I tell them that one cannot make the movie Sholay again. The repeat or sequel of Sholay will never be successful; that plot is gone. We need to be relevant to today’s consumers who are a lot smarter, more affirmative and strong willed. So, in our ads also we make kids look smarter and funkier.
Q] You recently repositioned your brand and the tagline to ‘shararat ek ghoont’. What were the insights behind the change?
I like to change my suit every year and I like to change the way my brand looks every year. Honestly. If I go to parties with the same suit, people will get bored of me. In the same way if my brand is of the same colour and same positioning people get bored. I have to be relevant; I have to change with the times so I always try to change within whatever the marketing people allow me to.
Q] Is there a pattern in your change, a direction?
We are moving more towards health, nature and fruit. Our products, communication and packaging is moving towards that. And that is also one of the reasons for launching other products on the health platform like Rasna glucose and squash. We believe that in today’s world, people want more fruit and health. So we are incorporating it as an overall strategy.
For example, our latest offering is a stick pack which has been launched for the first time in the powder category. It is found in coffee and sugar but not in this category. The whole idea of launching a novel stick pack is that competition is increasing, multinationals are entering the category and so we need to innovate. Multinationals are trying to ape Rasna, and trying to become one like it. So, we said, we’ll become something else and are launching more innovative, better designed products with different communication strategies.
Q] What has been the change pattern in terms of advertising and the medium of communication?
The looks of our creatives and the characters change with time. Earlier we used to focus on all households, nowadays we focus more on women and children because powder and dilatables do not appeal to youth.
Q] Coca-Cola India is re-entering the branded powdered ready-to-drink market at the Rs 5 price point, riding on the orange soft drink brand Fanta. What are your views on this?
I don’t face competition from multinationals. They come and go. If we have more brands in the category, the market size increases. For example brands like US Pizza and Pizza Hut has done a great favour to small people making pizzas. Eating pizza has become a fancy and the category itself has grown. So, if more brands come in, for a moment I may lose some market share but it will eventually double or triple the entire market size.
Q] What is your distribution strategy? How has it changed over the years?
We have the most efficient distribution in this segment. Our competitors use distribution of their other products like biscuits and chocolates while our distribution is totally focused on Rasna.
Q] There are reports that you are working on a product in the premium beverage segment. Could you share more information on that?
There are two premium products that we are working on. The powder premium beverage is the fruit stick which we recently launched with Saina Nehwal as the brand ambassador. The other product that we are still working in our labs for is in the RTD (Ready to Drink) segment. But I think more relevant is our premium offering in the powder segment. It is a contains a lot more fruit, is much more healthy and has a new packing.
Q] What are the key points that you keep in mind while executing your marketing plans?
The most important point is to remain a mass brand. I do not want to be clubbed in the class brand category. I would like Rasna to be a mass brand where it can appeal to the core India because to my mind FMCG industry is only big at the core. If you focus you brand only on the higher segment, you are dead. You have to appeal to the masses and you have to make your brand relevant to the entire country.
Q] But you are also trying to do something in the premium segment with the new stick pack launch...
Premium is at a Rs 5 price point. It is like saying that I am still selling a scooter but it is better designed, has features like gear, does not have a paddle, etc. My scooter is not going to change to a Mercedes. Parle G is the best glucose biscuit because of its value for money proposition and it will remain like that. I don’t think tomorrow Parle can claim that we will become expensive or will become a juice tomorrow. And even if I launch, people will not buy.
Q] One learns more from failures than successes. Is there any such phase or incident that you can share?
In the FMCG industry, nine out of ten products fail in this country. Even the Unilever, Nestle and Cadburys of the world have failed but still they launch new products. So to my mind it is a learning process. The biggest problem is that Indian marketing has not yet evolved in the processed food category. People never used to consume processed food. They were consuming everything made at home. So I think our best phase is yet to come. And that is good news because in other parts of the world the bad phase has already started in consumer markets. In most of the European and American countries the packaged foods segment is showing negative growth. In countries like India, Indonesia, Philippines and Egypt the market is still growing.
