Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Preethi Mixie : I Guarantee

Brand : Preethi
Company: Maya Appliances

Brand Count : 206


Preethi is an upcoming brand in the heavily crowded small appliances market in India. The brand has grown from a humble beginning to become the market leader in Mixer-Grinder market. Preethi is a brand from Chennai based Maya Appliances. The brand was born in 1978 and was no where in the main scene till the late nineties.
Preethi after 29 years is all ready to spread its wings . The brand which is famous in South India has started its journey to become national. The Mixer-Grinder market is worth around Rs 1000 crore and the market is dominated by local players. Almost 60% of the market is unorganised. Preethi is the market leader in the organised segment with a market share of over 30%.
Until late 1990's , Preethi was a small player and the market leader was Sumeet which had a huge brand equity among the consumers. Facing the issue of stagnation, Maya Agencies deputed a marketing and consulting firm Suhita Ethinic Marketing Services Ltd on a Channel and Customer research initiative. The research revealed lot of insight to the company regarding the product and also on the customer buying behavior. One major insight that the company got was the quality attribute that was highly associated with the brand. Both the dealers and customers strongly associated quality and ruggedness to the brand. These insights has helped the company to further sharpen their strategy.
The growth of the brand over the last 5 years has been phenomenal. The market leader Sumeet faced lot of internal issues that adversely affected their position in the market and Preethi became the market leader in the mixer-grinder segment.

Mixers and grinders are of three types : Mixer-Grinder, Juicer-Mixer-Grinder and Food Processor. Mixer-Grinder constitutes the largest category. This market faces the issue of price competition from local players. Hence all serious marketing activity takes place in the Rs 1500 + segment . It is estimated that there are 500 different manufacturers of Mixer Grinders in the country. Another issue is the frequency of purchase. Earlier a family would use the product for more than 15 years but over time, the frequency of purchase has been halved to around 7 years. Most of the time , these products are either bought/gifted at the time of marriage /housewarming and after repeated servicing , the family will opt for a new one. Hence the task of the marketer is to catch the new users everytime and often it is expensive.

I noticed this brand a few years back through the TVC. Preethi regularly uses television to promote the brand. The protagonist in the ad is a homemaker who guarantees the quality of the product . The tagline is " Preethi Mixie : I Guarantee". What impressed me was that the brand has used a homemaker ( Models are used) and the message is simple straight forward. The brand had a good share of voice in the local media. More interesting was the support that the brand enjoyed from the channel. When I inquired about this category, most of the dealers had high opinion about this brand.
Another factor that helped this brand was the product changes that the company made in tune with the trends. The brand comes in following variants : Ecoplus, Popular,Chefpro ,Supergrind and the latest one Blueleaf. In my opinion the strength of the brand is its understanding that Indian homemakers need powerful motor and Preethi Mixies delivered the maximum power.Even in my experience, most of the mixers are severely underpowered to meet the need of a typical Kitchen.

Blue Leaf is the latest offering from Preethi aimed at the upper segment .The new range is designed by Neil Foley of Titan Fastrack fame. The brand priced expensively at Rs 3500+ aims at the SEC A segment .BlueLeaf combine both design and power and is marketed heavily by the company. The brand takes a cue from the heavily promoted Philips Mixie who takes the USP of the silent mixer.Through Blueleaf, the brand intends to project the brand towards a lifestyle positioning.
Preethi has established its equity in Southern Markets by emphasizing its quality and with the new variant Blueleaf, it is all set to go national.

source: businessline,domainb


7 comments:

  1. We bought the "Blue Leaf" model last month and whenever my mom tries to put tomato chutney using this jar, the cap will be thrown within couple of seconds.

    We called the service centre & complaint about this issue. That week end service engineer came to our house & started to convenience my mom saying that she could haven't closed the jar perfectly. Then my dad bought 1/2 kg of tomato to proove this one. Service Er. put all the tomatos in the jar & switched on the mixie with some over confidence. Suddenly jar cap had been thrown & his shirt was completely filled up with tomatoes.

    After this service er. took the jars to his centre & came back to our house after 2 days and said that u shouldn't use these jars to grind tomatoes!!!.

    My analysis is that the jars haven't been designed perfectly to handle the motor speed(750 watts).
    So my recommendation is that don't go with this "Blue Leaf" model. It is one of the worst design from Preethi.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:38 AM

    Could you give me the customer service number.
    We stay in bay area.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maria D Egan-Vernum12:00 AM

    I beg to differ. I have been using the Blueleaf for the last 10 months. I grind cut tomatoes, onions, ginger, garlic, cinnamond, clove, make all my cutneys, powder my condiments ie pepper, cumminseed, corriander. I also use the big jar to beat sugar, egg and flour to make my cake. Ofcourse in reasonable quantities. Praise God for the Blue Lead. I swore by Sumeet --which served me faithfully for the last 30 years....but after service is not available for it anymore and was dumped. So I'll recommend the Blue Leaf to every hosewife.

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  4. There are Many other mixer like Bajaj,prestige which are performing good much better than preeti mixer. now days Preeti Quality Has come Down not like before.and is increasing the rate of mixers more compare to other Mixers.better opt for other mixer,even local mixer are better than preeti.Telling you by my experience.

    ReplyDelete
  5. kunal said...

    There are Many other mixer like Bajaj,prestige which are performing good much better than preeti mixer. now days Preeti Quality Has come Down not like before.and is increasing the rate of mixers more compare to other Mixers.better opt for other mixer,even local mixer are better than preeti.Telling you by my experience.

    11:20 AM

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  6. rakesh
    any sales and service of any mixer grinder and other home appliances u can mail me at chawla_milan23@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. I like ur post,very nice...I like this juicer and mixer

    ReplyDelete

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