Nido : Milk and More !

Brand : Nido
Company : Nestle


Brand Count : 255

Nido is Nestle's brand in the milk food segment. The brand is recently making lot of noises in the media. Nido is a milk powder fortified with Calcium and Vitamins. I think that Nido is the updated version of Nestle's Milk for Growing Children.

Nutritious food for children is a growing market worldwide. But this market is left unattractive by lot of regulatory issues. For example , in India, Infant foods ( foods for kids upto age 3) cannot be promoted through any media.
Nido operates in such a market. Nido targets kids above 3 yrs and is positioned as a food for growing children. The USP for Nido is that it is fortified with Calcium and Vitamin D which helps the kids develop strong and healthy bones. The TVC featuring the child and mother is now on air.

You can watch the ad through the link in the company website : Nestle Nido

Nido faces direct competition with the ordinary milk and milk based beverages.

The brand competes with Junior Horlicks and a host of other nutritional foods available in the Indian market. In terms of promotion and positioning, Junior Horlicks is miles ahead of other brands. But there is a difference between Nido and Horlicks in the sense that Nido is a milk food while Horlicks is a Malt based beverage. So the competition is essentially Industry competition rather than direct brand competition.
Nido is currently using a simple message to convey its positioning.The brand takes the tagline " Nutritious Milk for Growing Kids ". The brand takes the differentiation from other milk brands by having 25 essential nutrients that growing children needs ( comparison with 23 nutrients of Complan) . From the TVC, I think that Nido is addressing competition from both ordinary milk and brands like Horlicks , Bournvita , Complan and the like.

I feel that rather than competing with Horlicks and Complan, the brand will be better accepted if positioned as a substitute for ordinary milk. The ad says Nido is Milk + More.. That is the message that can take the brand forward.

Nestle Fresh N Natural Dahi : Branding A Commodity

Brand : Fresh N Natural
Company: Nestle
Agency : O&M

Brand Count : 172

Nestle Fresh N Natural dahi is a bold step by Nestle to brand the commodity called Dahi( curd). 2006 saw the high profile re-launch of this product . Nestle dahi was launched in 2001. The reason behind this move to enter into a tough commodity business is prompted by the size of the market. Dahi ( Hindi term for Curd) is the second largest form of milk usage following tea and coffee usage in households. The estimated consumption of curd is a whopping 2200 MT a day i.e. in revenue terms Rs 4.5 crore a day . That makes the market worth Rs 1600 crores. The market is largely dominated by regional players and more than that households make their own curd using milk. The business sense that prompted Nestle to enter this segment is that there is no national player in the market, although Amul has serious plans for the segment.

Nestle has launched the brand with a positioning based on the taste. The tagline was ‘ Jumm gaya Taste” meaning “ Great taste. The launch was a soft one and was concentrated on Delhi. The competition was in the form of Mother Diary and Amul.In 2002 Nestle launched a value added variant in the form of Fruit n Dahi.
2006 saw the relaunch of this brand on a different positioning. The brand is positioned as a calcium rich and creamy product with lot of emotions added to it. The brand is following the typical technique of differentiating by value addition ( rich creamy and calcium rich) and emotion ( pure, love ). The brand is also having raita ( another common Indian curd based dish).The relaunch is also limited to metros because of supply constraints.

This is a bold move by Nestle to enter into a highly commoditised market. Here the brand faces stiff competition from tradition rather than other companies. The changing psychographics of the Indian consumer may aid the brand. The lack of time to prepare the perfect dahi may prompt Indian consumer to stock this brand in the house. The longer shelf life of this brand may also come to help. But the task is not enviable in the sense that it takes lot of money and patience to change Indian consumer’s habits.

Source: magindia,nestle.in,agencyfaqs,businessline

Cerelac : In a Tough Terrain

Brand : Cerelac
Company: Nestle
Agency: McCann Healthcare


Brand Count 136

Cerelac is the market leader in the Rs 3oo crore Baby Cereal market in India. With a market share of 85%, the brand have a huge equity in the Indian market. The brand right now is facing the worst nightmare of its lifetime .

In Kotler's Marketing Management text, he elaborates on the various external environmental factors that affect marketing . In that chapter, he talks about the regulation and laws affecting the marketing of a product. Cerelac is a classic example of Regulations negatively impacting the marketing of a brand.

The infact foods market is a very sensitive market. Since it is concerning infants , the stakeholder's interests are high. In India the market is regulated by an act IMS act of 1992. The act lays down the rules for marketing infant foods and other products in the market. Earlier the law prohibited any advertising and marketing campaigns for baby foods for babies under 4 months of age.Recently the act was amended and restricted any promotion of foods for infants upto the age of 2 years. This amendments was a severe blow for Cerelac whose target market was infants.

Along with this regulatory factor , other factors also affected this brand. The major influencers of this product ;the doctors began recommending normal food for infants. Another major influencer WHO began global campaign on promoting breast milk and the government began to demarket milk substitutes.

The marketers (generally speaking) were also responsible for creating such a situation. The brands were promoted using claims not validated and there were also quality and health issues that was ignored. Seeing all the chubby babies on the ads, it is said that mothers started feeding infants with artificial foods that may have caused health problems. ( I have not yet come across any such serious health issues in kids who took these foods).

The new amendment prohibits use of baby models in the packs and restricts any form of promotions including sponsoring doctor conferences, surrogate ads, events etc. For sure this may have a huge impact on the market for such kind of products.

Sensing the threat to the category of Cerelac, Nestle has launched a brand Ceremeal ( a porridge) for kids aged above 2 years.

Now Cerelac sells through word of mouth publicity. The product will sell because there is a need for such nutritional infant foods in the market. Even there is going to be a huge potential for infant milk substitutes because of changing lifestyle and the fact that there is an increase in the number of working mothers.

Cerelac as a brand has not written off its future. In 2003, the brand launched a new formulation Cerelac 123 aimed at different stages in a baby's growth chart.

Since the brand is not advertised, the positioning is not very obvious. The brand is basically positioned as a highly nutritious food for infants.

So here the million dollar question for the marketer is this :

How do you promote such a product where there cannot be any promotion?

Surrogate advertising will be caught by the civil society workers and unnecessary controversy will be created. Events are also ruled out.

As of now the company rely on the shelf promotion for the product. The company has launched lot of flavours and variants in attractive colorful packages that give a banner effect at the shops.

The product is priced at a premium and does not have any sales promotions giving the company value growth.Since the brand is facing little competition, the lack of media promotions may not hurt the company too much.

One thing I have noticed is that the brand has a cute mascot or brand character . It is a blue teddy ( I am not sure whether it is named). If the brand wants to aggressively promote, then Teddy can show the way. Start giving away this small teddy with Cerelac and kids are gonna love it. The marketer can do wonders if they have a cute Mascot /Character.

Cerelac has one, use it.

source: businessline, agencyfaqs, magindia, nestleindia

Disclaimer : This is an analysis of the Cerelac brand in the point of view of a marketer, not a promotion of this brand.

Everyday Dairy Whitener: For a Great Tasting Tea

Brand : Everyday
Company: Nestle


Indian milk powder market is at a nascent stage . While the dairy market in India is a huge market, milk powders were not able to garner a major share in this market. While the loose milk market is estimated to be around Rs470 billion, the processed milk market is only Rs 10000 crores. Milk powder market is only 7% of the whole milk market. 46% of the milk produced in India is consumed in the liquid form while 47% are used for making products like ghee etc only 7% is used for making western products like butter milk powder etc.

There are two types of milk powders

a. Whole milk powder
b. Skimmed milk powder.

Everyday is a major player in the Dairy whitener category that is a part of the skimmed milk category. The dairy whiteners are used for tea making.
Everyday was launched in 1986 now have a market share of around 22%. The category is facing the major obstacle of consumer perception towards this category. The consumers perceive that loose milk is fresh. And with abundant milk supply, milk powders were able to penetrate only 4.7% of the entire market.

While Everyday faces stiff competition from Amul's Amulya and Britannia's Milkman, the major competition is from the ordinary milk. Now consumers use milk powder as a standby for packaged milk and also for making tea and coffee. Although, milk powders have the advantage of shelf life and convenience, that is not enough to fight the competition from packaged milk.

The only strategy is to add value to the milk powder other than the expected attributes of convenience and shelflife. Although Amulya tried to differentiate focusing on the " free from insolubles" it is not enough to expand the category.
Conventional marketing theory says either expand the market or increase the usage /usage situations .
When you look at this product, the usage right now is limited, one cannot use this other than making tea, that is a major drawback for milk powders. Hence within these limitations, Everyday has to add more value. The price is expensive compared to loose milk so without adding more value, the market will not expand. Everyday have launched a new " low calorie" variant of the whitener. Also an extension to the ghee category has been made.

The milk powder market, it it had to grow may have to show that it is a better option compared to the liquid form. Adding more nutrients , variants and identifying multiple uses are the only option in this nascent market.

Till then have a cup of tea.

Polo : Mint With A Hole

Brand : Polo
Company : Nestle
Agency : Lowe


Polo is the market leader in the mint candy category in India. This is a brand that has created lot of excitement in the market with its smart advertising and promotion.
The history of Polo dates back to 1725 when Rowntree opened a tea and coffee shop in York. In 1948, they began selling Polo Mint candy. The company changed hands and in 1988 Nestle bought the company over. Polo was launched in India in 1994.

The word Polo is said to be derived from the word Polar . The word points to the cool and fresh feeling gained after taking a freshener like Polo.
Polo comes under the Adult confectionery market which is estimated to be around 1100 crores. Polo is the market leader in the mint based lozenges category.
Polo is famous for its positioning as a " Mint with a Hole " which created lot of excitement for the brand. The campaigns portrayed the unique shape as a differentiating factor. The campaigns was humorous and the product gained instant market.

The category is now facing lot of competition. Big players like ITC and Perfetti is eyeing this category seriously. ITC have acquired MintO from candico in 2002 and aggressively promoting the brand with the positioning " unusually Cool". Candico earlier pitted MintO as a Mint without a hole thus challenging Polo headon. Then ITC repositioned Minto as a cool brand. There are other players like Chlor-Mint getting aggressive in this market.

Nestle recently have done away with its successful positioning based on the Hole. The brand changed the agency to Lowe. The current campaign talks about the cosmetic benefit and value addition. The ads talks about whistling while eating Polo with the baseline " Polo ghao seethi bajao" which does not create any meaningful impact on the TG.

Polo was successful in the market because of smart ads and some innovative product strategies like Polo holes in sachets at a very low price point. But recently the company has discarded the age old positioning of Mint with a Hole . This shift together with some ineffective ads can prove to be a watershed for the brand. The fresh breath proposition is already taken by the competitors.The competing brands are also making innovations in the products like coming out with flavours other than mint, sugar free variants etc.

Polo will have to work hard on its product strategy to keep the market it had created.

Maggi : Its different

Brand : Maggi
Company: Nestle
Agency" Publicis

Maggi owned by Nestle is a brand that created a category for itself in the Foods market in India. The brand which is famous for the Noodles has evolved into the umbrella brand for Nestle in the Food segment.

Nestle launched its noodles in the Indian market in the early 1980's. Nestle wanted to explore the potential for such an Instant food among the Indian market. It took several years and lot of money for Nestle to establish( I would say create) its Noodles brand in India . Now it enjoys around 50% market share in this segment which is valued at around 250 crores.

Maggi has faced lot of hurdles in its journey in India. The basic problem the brand faced is the Indian Psyche. Indian Palate is not too adventurous in terms of trying new tastes. That may be the reason why we are still stuck with Idli and Sambhar.
So a new product with a new taste that too from a different culture will have difficulty in appealing to Indian market.

Initially Nestle tried to position the Noodles in the platform of convenience targeting the working women. But it found that the sales are not picking up despite heavy promotion .Research then showed that Kids were the largest consumers of the brand. Realising this, Nestle repositioned the brand towards the kids using sales promotions and smart advertising.
Now Indians are the largest eaters of Maggi Noodles in the world. Maggi Noodles is a marketing success story.

During 1997 Maggi changed its formulation. It was during that time that Indo Nissin - a Japanese company launched its Noodles brand "Top Ramen" with lot of promotion and with SRK endorsing the brand. TopRamen gave Maggi a run for its money. The change in taste of Maggi was a mistake. The consumers rejected the new taste of Maggi. And in 1999 Maggi relaunched Noodles with the original taste. Nestle was ready to accept the consumers verdict and it paid off handsomely. Top Ramen could not sustain the growth it had for long.

Maggi's campaigns were revolved around its "convenience to make and good to eat " qualities. Ready in " 2 minutes " was a proposition that was well received by the market.

In 2005 Nestle made a very smart move. It knew that although kids love noodles, the parents were bothered about the health aspect of Noodles which was made of Maida. Hence Maggi launched Maggi Atta Noodles with the baseline " taste bhi health bhi" .Reports suggest that after 10 months of the launch , the product has been well received by Indian consumers. Maggi noodles is an example of a brand that knows the customer and willing to learn from the mistakes.

Maggi also tried to leverage the success of the Noodles to other food products like sauces , tastemakers , soups etc.
Maggi sauces needs special mention because it is another success story. Maggi have a market share of 45% in the 180crore ketchup market in India. Maggi leveraged the brand equity very effectively. The product quality was good and the communication was excellent. The brand was positioned as a "Different" sauce with the baseline " Its different".

Customers was intrigued as to what is different about the brand and was curious to try the sauce ( may be surprised to find nothing different,but that is marketing honey!). The ads featuring Javed and Pankaj kapoor was superb and funny. It was created by JWT. The new campaigns are handled by Publicis and the baseline has been changed to " enjoy the difference".

There was no need to change the baseline,may be ad agencies have an ego problem in accepting the creativity of another agency. So agencies change the baseline even at the cost of the brand.In this case even though the new baseline " enjoy the difference" was not very different from the old one, was it a change for the sake of change ?

I strongly feel that the brand managers should take the ownership of the brand and the way it is communicated. If it is left to agency alone, every time the agency changes, the communication changes.

Maggi after its long and tough journey is enjoying its well deserved success. Let us wait and watch for more journeys of Maggi.