Brand Update : Horlicks Becomes A Megabrand !

This had to happen.

Horlicks officially has become a mega-brand. Mega-brands are those brands which have their presence across various product-lines and categories. There will be a wide range of products under the same brand name across multiple product categories.

GSK has recently launched the first integrated brand campaign for Horlicks which positions the brand as a Mega-brand endorsing products across categories like beverages, biscuits , snack bars,etc

Watch the ad here : Horlicks mega brand campaign

This is the first time that the brand brings all the various extensions under the same campaign. Horlicks as the umbrella brand retains the classic tagline " The Great Family Nourisher ".

Along with the new campaign, the brand also has redesigned the critical brand elements like the Logo and the Packaging. The brand had made some changes with regard to the logo color and made the logo + color scheme standard across all extensions. The brand also made the packaging standard for all its beverages viz Horlicks Lite, Women's Horlicks , standard Horlicks etc.

The official acknowledgement of Horlicks as a mega-brand in a way clears the ambiguity regarding the future of the Horlicks brand. In recent blog posts, I had criticized the brand for their aggressive brand extensions. In this one move, Horlicks has given an answer to the critic in me . Horlicks is no longer a health-drink brand. It is a mega-brand which has interest in foods,beverages, snack-bars and all the future opportunities that arise in the market ( whether you like it or not).

This move thus gives lot of clarity to the brand managers. The brand has boldly made a decision whether it is right or wrong. The brand can aggressively pursue any opportunity in the market because that is what is implied in this strategic move of making Horlicks -a mega brand.

Horlicks is now a Rs 1500 crore brand. The brand is having around 52% share in the health food drinks category ( which is estimated to be Rs 2000 crore). The brand also has presence in biscuits ( total market size - Rs 11000 crore) and in snack-bar ( total mkt size -Rs 250 cr0re).

With the new brand architecture , Horlicks is looking at a larger market which comprises of all kinds of health foods and packaged/branded beverages which is having a total market size of over Rs 100,000 crore ( Source : Campaign India). So one should be prepared to see the launch of products like Horlicks Icecreams, Horlicks Oats etc in future.

On the brighter side, the repositioning of Horlicks as a mega-brand will rationalize the marketing cost for GSK. Although there will be individual brand communications for categories, the brand can now put more money on pushing the core brand which will inturn help all products under the umbrella.

But as major critics of such branding like Alries would point out, Horlicks has now lost its identity. Now consumers will find it difficult to assign a unique position for Horlicks. This dilution can be an opportunity for specialized products which can threaten the strongholds of Horlicks which is the health-food-drink. A focused health food drink brand can now challenge Horlicks's position but the fact is that there is none so far. Complan too has launched products outside the HFD category.

As a keen observer of marketing I feel that the move of making Horlicks is the biggest risk taken by this brand. The brand has moved into the current architecture when competition has become tough in the health-drink category. It will be worthwhile to watch the future of this mega-brand.

Related Post

Horlicks

The Great Horlicks Challenge

Brand : Horlicks

Agency :JWT

Company: GSK.


A 135 year old brand com constantly reinventing itself. A case of marketing common sense in action. Horlicks has long been the favorite health drink of India.
The brand commands 54% market share in Indian Health Drink industry which is valued at around Rs 1300 crore.

As always the brand which was successful was perceived to be a "boring brand" ( that is what the literature says). May be the reason was that there was no significant change in the look of the brand in terms of communication and packaging for a long period of time. So marketers who think that a brand has to constantly change itself inorder to maintain interest in the mind of the customers, were not at all impressed.

Then as usual , the competition increased. The major competitor "Complan" from Heinz stable began to experiment and create noise in the market. So the sleeping giant has to wake up.

Horlicks was positioning itself with nutrition. It had a strong nutritive association for very long period. GSK decided to extend this nutritive association and the communication was changed from "Great Family Nourisher to " pleasurable family nourisher". GSK began to introduce different
flavours ( choco,vanilla, elachi) trying to create excitement in the customers. The packaging has been changed to a much more colourful and funky bottle.
Lot of noise was made in the media with some meaningless blabbering " Apang Opang Japang" aimed at kids.

Then GSK thought about tapping the aged also. Horlicks lite was launched with lot of ad support featuring Boman Irani. Horlicks lite is a sugar free drink targeted at the health conscious /diabetic people. This is a good marketing move since this segment is fast growing and Horlicks have the advantage of a positive brand image.

The recent aggressive campaign of Horlicks features the new positioning " Now proven-Taller,stronger sharper" aims directly at Complan- which is now focusing on non drinkers.

The campaign is done in association with National Institute of Nutrition and features a " clinical trial" on 869 kids of age group 6-16 yrs. One group was given Horlicks while the other a placebo. The result is that the Horlicks group were more taller stronger and sharper than the control group.

Although there is a scope for controversy about this campaign, it is going to take a lot of work from Complan to counter the threat of Horlicks " new challenge"