Underlying challenges faced in establishing a brand for Maggi in the Indian Market by

Bhawani Nandan Prasad - MBA IIM Calcutta

Five tests of a great brand are:

i. Relevance: Does it contain the brand’s underlying “value”?

ii. Memorability of its ad: Does it make an impact and prompt recall?

iii. Integration: Does it lend itself to a compelling brand identity?

iv. Differentiation: Is it sufficiently differentiated from competition?

v. Endurance: Does it stand the test of time?

India is unique in its diversity--1.2 billion population, 17 major languages, 1600 dialects. It lives

simultaneously in the 19th

and 21st century. Finding common ground across all this diversity is a

real challenge. To start with I would like to define what is brand. Brand is a name, term, symbol, sign or design

or a combination of them, intended to identify the product or services of one marketer and

differentiate the offering from that of its competitors. A brand thus signals to the customer the

source of the product, and protects both the customer and the producer from competitors who

would attempt to provide identical or seems to be identical products.

Building a great brand is a lifelong commitment that takes time and great planning which

produces intangible outputs including greater customer satisfaction, reduced price sensitivity, a

greater share of customers’ wallets and a higher percentage of repeat business

Brand building is about establishing a person-to-person relationship as opposed to a

salesperson-to-customer relationship. Branding in India is still at nascent stage. Too many

people continue to confuse branding with brand building or brand management. While brand

building is linked with a mere identity/ design; the latter is a long-term process requiring effort

and time. In absolute sense, true brand building is like playing a 5 day test match in an era of

Twenty-20s cricket.

Challenges In India

1) In India, the tools and methods utilised for establishing a brand are different. Primarily,

the difference between India and the developed economies would be that in India, the

information is unorgainsed. It is not readily available. Anywhere in the western world,

information is very easily available. A lot of information can be collected by mining data

and buying reports online etc. In India, we still have to do face-to-face interactions to be

able to get information. Second, the techniques used in US, Europe like email

questionnaires to collect information-wouldn’t work in India. You will not be able to get

the information you need within a stipulated time frame. In India any research becomes

a time consuming and laborious effort simply because while we are getting professional

there is still a lot of indiscipline.

2) Price sensitivity: Large part of Indian population is still middle or lower middle class. To

have security in future, everybody wants to do some savings which can be used in odd

time or whenever needed. There is still inclination of people towards lower price items

with nominal quality. People have priority for brand which they have heard of and

somebody known have already used it and there is word of mouth. Everything which is

in range of Rs 5 or 10 will be purchased easily

3) Non Homogeneous market: Apart from these two factors, I would say it is extremely

important that the marketing naunces be well researched. The Indian market is not

homogeneous and therefore very complex. The needs and preferences of a person living

in Kerala and Delhi may not be identical. In fact, brands like Coke have different

campaigns for the north and the south. So customization is more important in India than

in its Western counterparts.

4) Limited sources of Information flow : A large part of Indian population lives in Rural

India who have limited sources of Information only TV (with Doordarshan in general)

and local newspaper. Because of low literacy rate, people intend to understand the

product from look and feel. They would not like to buy any product with out touch and

feel so if brand is already established and trusted, then only they will purchase its

products with-out hesitation

5) Reach and diversity : Because of large geography and wide diversity of population, only

those brands can be established who can widely spread their base and is always

reachable. People look for some time even brand logos in local language. Look, color,

feel can be same but if logo is in local language, then that creates a larger impact.

Choose a brand:

There are many brands who have established themselves in India like Nokia, Airtel, Idea,

Colgate, Surf, Godrej, Fevicol, Bisleri, Cherry, Samsung, LG, Videocon, Maggi, Amul, Coke, Pepsi,

Cadbury, Kellogg’s corn flakes etc.

I would like to elaborate how Maggi – Just 2 minutes established itself as brand in instant food

market when there was no as such mechanism of safely storing the food and using it.

In 1980s during launch period, Maggi was distributed free in schools to promote trials. In 1990s,

The company made an attempt to change the formulation of the product but that was rejected

by customers and company had to go back to old formulation.

Maggi noodles – A brand of instant noodles manufactured by Nestle is such a strong brand in

mind of consumer that it met all the key parameters of brands relevance (whenever I am

hungry, this will take only 2 minutes, memorability of its advertisement (mummy, bhuk lagi

hai), Integration (every age group person likes this and have some memories with Maggi),

differentiation (every noodles is call Maggi in first instance) and Endurance.

Maggi (taste bhi health bhi) is so popular in Indian markets from Kashmir to Kanya kumari that

people still opt Maggi as first instant food option over others where there are lot of options

available in market these days. Maggi have adopted so well in Indian market that people feel

that this in made in India and made for India. To cater to health conscious buyers, Maggi

started vegetable aata noodles and now mothers are not hesistant to serve this as afterschool

snacks.

Nestlé India Ltd (NIL) offered a variety of culinary products such as instant noodles, soups,

sauces and ketchups, cooking aids (seasonings), etc., under the Maggi brand. Of these, instant

noodles had been NIL's main product category in the culinary segment since the launch of

Maggi 2 Minute Noodles (Maggi noodles) in 1982. Over the years, Maggi noodles became a

popular snack food product in India. In fact, the word "Maggi" has become a synonymous term

for any brand of instant noodles in India

This is so easy to cook that even on a day when males like to cook on their own (which is not a

culture in India generally), The Maggi noodle cake and seasoning is added into boiling water for

two minutes and it is ready for consumption. Egg, seaweed, boiled vegetables, lemon or even

milk can also be added to the noodles for a better flavour

Various flavours

Maggi Noodles are available in a large assortment of different flavours like normal

noodles, aata noodles

Maggi noodles also produces instant noodles known as "Hot Bowl" noodles named

"Cuppa Mania" in India..

New drinkable Maggi noodle soups are also available.

New compaign of Maggi is Meri Maggi 2 minutes Khushiyan where you will share the good

experience which you have with Maggi. “Maggi se bane Khushiyan 2 minutes mein”. As

Amitabh Bachaan is brand endorser of these ads who himself is so well established and role

model for every Indian, this became added advantage for Maggi’s market share in this

competitive market space.

Overall, this segment has good growth potential because of changing lifestyle, eating habits of

Indian consumers and the increasing purchasing power of the growing middle income group.

Demand for convenience food is increasing day by day and Maggi is still first choice of every

Indian when we talk for instant food which is easily available in even remotest of location in

India.