Monday, October 27, 2008

Bio Fresh : Making Fruits and Vegetables Healthy

Brand : Bio Fresh
Company : Blue Saffire Trading Corporation


Brand Analysis Count : 355

Bio Fresh is a new product that has been launched in Kerala recently . Marketing is about meeting needs profitably and successful marketers are able to identify the needs by closely watching the marketing environment. Bio Fresh is such an initiative by a little known company.

Bio Fresh is an organic cleanser which can be used to clean fruits and vegetables. We all are aware that there is an indiscriminate use of pesticides and harmful chemicals on fruits and vegetables . There are cases where fruits like Apple are waxed inorder to preserve it and make it look fresh.

Although there are many incidence of poisoning reported because of this indiscriminate use of harmful chemicals, nothing has been done by government or authorities to check such contamination. Infact India does not have a regulatory and infrastructural framework to check such contamination on vegetable and fruits.

One one hand, doctors and health practitioners exhort public to eat more fruits and vegetables and on the other hand there are growing concern about the harmful chemicals being present on raw fruits and vegetables.

It is in this context that a product like Bio Fresh gains importance. According to the company website and newspaper reports :

" Bio Fresh is an organic cleanser made of extracts from microbes and citric acid which has the ability to clean fruit and vegetables from pesticide and insecticide residues. It is even able to clean the waxing on fruits . The product does not leave any after tastes or residues"

The pesticide and insecticide residues normally cannot be cleaned effectively using running water. The company claims that Bio Fresh can clean fruits and vegetables from such contamination.

The brand is currently available in select cities in Kerala. Bio Fresh is retailing at Rs 79 for 200 ml bottle.
The company has been running some print and visual campaigns in Kerala.

My first impression about this product is highly positive. It really address a common problem faced by households. But that does not guarantee the success of a product.

Although most of the households are aware of the problem of contamination, Bio Fresh has the tough task of convincing the homemakers that this brand is the savior.

The problem I see is that how will Bio Fresh convince the customer that it cleans these fruits and vegetables from pesticides ? The benefit cannot be visually seen by the consumer. Hence convincing the homemaker is not going to be an easy task . For a brand to be able to convince the customer about its benefits, the benefits must be observable.

Although I have not used the product, I feel that the benefits cannot be observed by the consumer. ( I will use it an update on this soon ). And if it is not observable, will the consumer pay and use this brand continuously believing the claims ?

So how can a marketer be able to convince a customer on some intangible un-observable benefits ? The idea will be to tangibilise and make it observable. The brand can use clinical and laboratory tests to prove its efficacy and use those test results to convince the customer.

Using influencers like doctors and health specialists can go a long way in building trust among the consumers. Brands like Colgate and Johnson and Johnson use doctors ( or models posing as doctors) to build the trust for their products. Bio Fresh also need endorsements from such trust -worthy source inorder to break into homemaker's mind.

If the claims are true Bio Fresh is a product that can give lot of homemakers relief specially in households where there are kids .

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:33 AM

    Interesting post and product...Kerala does have the consumption index to have such products test marketed first in that market.
    As a practitioner myself, I have been actively involved in this unique phenomenon - of test marketing of products for the more brand conscious audiences in that state ( mine too :) - across categories. ( Paints, Soaps, Watches)
    In this specific case, there is a growing trend towards GM Foods - being launched by biggie global brands like Monsanto and Dupont into India. The jury is still out on whether the GM Foods are edible!
    The nay-sayers are opposing this launch - ( www.iamnolabrat.com) is a case of the opposers to this cause.

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  2. I believe that using Doctors and physicians as influencing agents may not work like they do for toothpastes. The reason for this is, everyone knows what happens when one doesnt use toothpaste (or uses the wrong kind).... The tooth decay angle motivates users to keep their ears open (and while they are, they listen to subject matter experts like doctors/dentists and physicians recommending different toothpastes)
    So unless the harmful outcomes(synonymous to tooth decay) of not using this product are not known, consumers may not keep their eyes and years open and wont care what doctors have to say.


    Again.. this is my opinion.

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