POSITIONING : DAIRY MILK & COCA COLA

The latest series of ads of Cadbury show the context of pay day and eating of Cadbury Dairy Milk. A visit to their web page gives us some idea of the thought behind the campaign.Directly from the website - Sanjay Purohit, Executive Director - Marketing, Cadbury India Ltd said, “This new campaign takes the concept of celebrations to yet another level. With Pappu and Miss Palampur campaign, CDM created a space for itself during the big, community celebration moments. This commercial keeps the core promise of happiness while introducing another 'moment of joy' in one’s life. The new commercial highlights the celebratory occasion of payday, which is an important event in the life of every middle-class Indian.” For more visit Cadbury India.

The second ad or rather series of Ads which I found interesting is the Aamir Khan series of "Thanda Mathlab Coca Cola". Most of us would remember the series, both because of Aamir Khan and the good story lines behind the series.The basic idea I felt behind both the campaigns is to go out and occupy a distinct space in the consumer's mind , and as has been said before if you are able to occupy a distinct space in the consumer's mind then it become very difficult for a competitor to dislodge you, the essence of positioning.

And it might be easier done if one is able to capture a word in the consumer's mind which already exists , in the case of cadburys that word is "Meetha" a generic to represent all and any kind of sweet. Similary in the case of Coca-Cola the attempt to build an association with the word "Thanda" which means in common parlance any drink which is served cold , be it the ubiquitous lemon based Nimbu pani or a soft drink. The only problem with this approach is it is long term and one has to stick to the same message.

Perfect Penetration : BRITANNIA

The introduction of a low-priced product into the product portfolio of a company can have many implications. Many a times it can change a company in many fundamental ways. Though even company introducing premium priced products , cannot afford to ignore many retailers while deciding upon the distribution network as for a company these may be a small retail top-up shops but in reality sales matter and these top-up shops generate more sales then organised firms.

One company which has gone through this sort of a paradigsm shift is Britannia industries. A premium biscuit and cookie manufacturer in the confectionary segment till the launch of TIGER biscuits. Tiger biscuit was launched in 1997 and brought a shift in the overall distribution and marketing focus of the company because tiger was pitched against PARLE-G Glucose biscuits , the Rs 40 per kg mass biscuits, a brand which gave the identity to biscuits and initiated its branding.

In the pre-tiger era there use to a gap between supply and demand for britannia biscuits, and the company had a laid-back approach towards distribution and in tier-II cities in the country a situation of non-avalibility of Britannia biscuits was always common . The launch of tiger biscuits brought the revolution in the company's supply chain management, the company was forced to think,that even their product had the potential still market share was questionable against Parle their was a need to act and distribute like a mass marketier and they ended up developing specific models for distributing Tiger biscuits in rural markets across the coutry....
with the introduction of the Rs1 Sachets of Tiger biscuits meant that the company had to even place the product in Tea shops and other smaller top-up shops where it would be cosumed with tea....
Today Tiger brand is a Rs 650 Crore plus brand in the market and the comapny itself has trasformed into a distribution powerhouse placing the PARLE into the tough situation...over the time...!!!