A Project Repot on BRANDING (Case study of MAGGI as a Brand)

By: Tejas V. Kakade Roll No. VA09MBA09P03

GREAT EASTERN MANAGEMENT SCHOOL, BANGALORE

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CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Project work BRANDING (Case study of MAGGI as a Brand) is submitted to the college by the candidate Mr. Tejas V. Kakade bearing Reg. No. AA3AB0064410059AG is the product of bonafide research carried out by the candidate under my supervision in Marketing Management.

(GUIDE) BANGALORE DR.G.S.HEDGE Bangalore NOV, 2011 Lecturer, Business Statistics Great Eastern Management School

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CONTENTS

Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Chapters Introduction to Brand Brand Building Brand Equity Brand Repositioning Brand Personality Case Study-Maggi a) Case Background

Page No. 5-10 11-16 17-20 21-22 23-25

6.

b) BCG Matrix c) SWOT Analysis d) Best Coerce of Action e) Reposition

26-38

7.

References

38-40

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Project work was carried out under the remarkable guidance of Dr. G.S.Hedge Lecturer, Great Eastern Management School. I am grateful for his guidance, valuable suggestions and for the constant encouragement and co-operation. I also express my sincere gratitude and thanks to all the subjects participated in the study. I owe the successful completion of my work to Ms. Mythri for her kind support.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

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What is Brand?

A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan. The word brand began simply as a way to tell one person's cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark.

The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service.

A brand is the name of a particular business enterprise. There are several reasons why a brand is important. A brand can help to differentiate a particular company from others in a market.

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The brand is the sum total of the consumer's impressions about the product and service. The less distinctive these impressions, the greater the risk that a competitor's products or services may gain a stronger perception and competitive advantage.

Brand management is a process that combines various techniques and strategies that go into making a particular brand. Marketing plans are important parts of the process. Since brands are essential to the success of the company it is important to work hard at the creating a brand.

Principles of Branding A key ingredient in launching a successful company is the selection of its name. Product names that are considered generally sound have several qualities in common. They strategically distinguish the product from its competitors by conveying its unique positioning They hold appeal for the products target audience They imply the brands benefit They are available for legal protection.
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They allow companies to bond with their customers to create loyalty. They have a symbolic association that fortifies the image of a company or a product to the consumers. They help motivate customers to buy the product. They can buy a product image and name.

Types of Branding Brand names for American products typically fall into one of four categories: descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary and fanciful. Descriptive Descriptive names ascribe to the product a characteristic, feature, ingredient, appearance or geographic location. Examples of descriptive product names include Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Florida Orange Juice, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Transitions Lenses. Descriptive product names can be overly long. Also, these names can become generalized and turned into a category name instead of a brand, exemplified by Rollerblade and Dry Ice. Suggestive Suggestive names, the second type of names, suggest or hint at a products key features or benefits. They are allusive and are often formed by metaphors, allusions or simile. Suggestive product naming is common in business-to-consumer categories such as food and household goods. Bounty paper towels, Hersheys and the Mr.

Kisses candy, Always feminine

products, Kelloggs Nutri-Grain bars

Clean Magic Eraser cleaning product are all examples of suggestive product names that are meant to imply a variety of positive associations to consumers. Both descriptive and suggestive names are composed only of natural English words that either work alone or in combination to form a literal or abstract name.
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Arbitrary The third category of names, arbitrary, do not describe a product or literally suggest a product meaning. They are likewise not adapted from features or benefits of the product. They are literally arbitrary. Arbitrary names can be made up of either coined or natural words. Apple, for example, was created because Steve Jobs worked on an apple farm and also believed apples to be the perfect fruit. Fanciful Fanciful or coined names, also referred to as neologisms, are often perceived as a recent phenomenon and as "completely made up," although neither of these assumptions is true. They have been popular in the United States for more than a century, evidenced by established brands like Crayola, Coca-Cola and Kool Aid. These product names are so readily understood that, to many people, they simply do not sound coined. Names that are usually judged to be the most effective are "meaningfully coined"; that is, they are built on descriptive or suggestive words that have meaning for the target market. Examples are Lunchables (lunch + ability) and Motorolas RAZR (a stylized re-spelling of razor, which alludes to the cell phones thin profile).

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Famous Brands

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Chapter 2 Brand Building

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Brand Building

It has been noticed that brand loyalty is an important factor in maintaining the number one position. The fact that brands are a part of the company equity is now a universal concept, however what this awareness implies has not yet been fully analyzed. As is often the case, phrases such as brands are our equity become company leitmotivs. The truth is that, when taken at its word, this brand equity awareness has actually revolutionized operational marketing.

Brand Equity is imperative for a company to succeed in today's market to have a decent brand development system in place.

Brand equity involves both the component value of a brand and brand value. Brand equity enhances the value of a product and creates a positive environment for the company to increase prices.

Brand Equity is defined as the aggregation of two aspects of a product. The first being the component value of a Brand i.e. a product value prior to marketing. The second is brand value I.e. the increased value of a product due to branding.

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Branding has been shown to transform the perceived value of a product by making it well known to customers through aggressive promotion and marketing. It has been observed that this transformation infuses a value into the name and consequently increases its price.

There are many apparel companies for a product in domestic as well as foreign markets. But only a few have qualified themselves as a brand . Clearly, the price range of these well known brands is much higher than the others. The main factor behind this price differential is the added brand value. Thus, brand equity of such product includes its component as well as the brand value. Brand equity refers to the intangible value that accrues to a company as a result of its successful efforts to establish a strong brand. A brand is a name, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes the company's goods or services in the marketplace. Consumers often rely upon brands to guide their purchase decisions.

The positive feelings consumers accumulate about a particular brand are what makes the brand a valuable asset for the company that owns it.

Many companies structure their marketing programs around building and preserving their brand equity. "To be a strong brand, a company must instill a clear, unwavering consumer perception of the distinctive emotional or functional benefits of its products and services,"

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Types of Brand Building Strategies There are a few approaches on brand building strategies:

Product branding Product-line branding Product-range branding Corporate branding

PRODUCT BRANDING STRATEGY

This type of brand give each individual product an exclusive brand name and the company name being ignored

It allows the brand to have unique values, personality, identity and positioning. By doing so, it implies that every new product the company brings on to the market is a new brand and can be positioned precisely for a specific market segment

It has the advantage of making it easier for the company to evaluate brand performance and worth and allows better resource-allocation decisions.

The major drawbacks are product cannibalization if consumers cannot differentiate clearly among product brands and involves higher advertising and promotion budget and is totally self-supporting with little or not brand name assistance or assurance from the parent.

PRODUCT-LINE BRANDING STRATEGY

Here, the products appear under the same brand name and possess the same basic identity but with slightly different competencies for example Follow Me line of hair shampoos. Here the brand line comes under the hair-care category but the different line extensions cover complementary applications of essentially the same product

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Advantages therefore are economies of scale in advertising and promotion and each new line extension strengthens the position of the brand and therefore its image. The line helps defend the category from predatory attack. Hence, individual product brands can move across to line brands as companies find ways of extending the brand to different consumer groups or segments.

PRODUCT- RANGE BRANDING STRATEGY

A number of products or services in a broad category are grouped together under one brand name and promoted with one basic identity.

Compared to product-line branding, product-range branded products carry out the basically the same functions but at different performance levels like various cars in the Mercedes S, E, C and A class and Intels Pentium and Celeron ranges of microprocessors.

Therefore the advantage here is that a single brand name allows some economies of scale in advertising and promotion as the products tend to carry the same overall brand values and positioning.

CORPORATE BRANDING STRATEGY

Two approaches in the Corporate brand exercises

First is to promote its name as the main brand name sometimes referred to as monolithic or umbrella branding. Here the product is not branded individually or as strongly as the corporate brand. Companies using this approach IBM, Virgin, Sony. The basic principle is that the companies believed that the company name is the life of an enterprise.

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The second approach which is becoming popular whereby the product brand name has a high profile but is endorsed by the parent company which gives the product a stamp of quality and credibility. Here the product brand is self supporting in practically every respect but retains the assurance of the corporate brand endorsement. This type of corporate branding is also called house or endorsement branding. Nestle uses this approach to protect and guarantee the performance of their multitude products.

Also suitable for companies engaged in service industries as their products are more intangible in nature. When consumers cannot see the products, the company name helps to give them an assurance of quality, heritage and authenticity

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Chapter 3 Brand Equity

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Brand Equity

The basis of brand equity lies in the relationship that develops between a consumer and the company selling the products or services under the brand name. A consumer who prefers a particular brand basically agrees to select that brand pover others based primarily on his or her perception of the brand and its value. The buyer may even pay a higher price for the company's goods or services because of his commitment, or passive agreement, to buy the brand. In return for the buyer's brand loyalty, the company essentially assures the buyer that the product will confer the benefits associated with, and expected from, the brand.

In order to benefit from the consumer relationship allowed by branding, a company must painstakingly strive to earn and maintain brand loyalty. Building a brand requires the company to gain name recognition for its product, get the consumer to actually try its brand, and then convince the buyer that the brand is acceptable. Only after those triumphs can the company hopes to secure some degree of preference for its brand.

Name awareness is a critical factor in achieving brand success. Companies may spend vast sums of money and effort just to attain recognition of a new brand. But getting
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consumers to recognize a brand name is only half the battle in building brand equity. It is also important for the company to establish strong, positive associations with the brand and its use in the minds of consumers. The first step in building brand equity is for the company to define itself and what it hopes to represent for consumers. The next step is to make sure that all aspects of the company's operations support this image, from its product and service offerings to its marketing programs to its customer service policies. When all of these elements support a distinctive image of the company and its products in the minds of consumers, the company has established brand equity.

Measuring and Protecting Brand Equity

Although measuring brand equity can be difficult, it can also provide managers with a good indication of their company's future profitability. "Companies which develop good measures of their brand equity have an early warning indicator of likely future profit trends, and can get a much better feel of the dangers of shorttermism," Mitchell noted. "If brand equity is falling, you're storing up trouble for yourself. If brand equity is rising, you're investing in future performance, even if it's not showing through in profits today. Real business performance therefore equals short-term results plus shifts in brand equity."

Unfortunately, measuring brand equity is not as simple as counting the number of people who recognize a brand name or symbol. It is also dangerous to assume that simply because its brand is well-known, a company enjoys strong or growing brand equity. In fact, the most powerful brands can easily be diluted by company missteps or inconsistent marketing messages. Mitchell explained that the best way to measure brand equity depends on the particular company and its industry. For example, in some cases assessing consumer perceptions of product quality may provide the best indication of brand equity. In other cases, more traditional business measures such as customer satisfaction or market share may be more closely correlated with brand equity. Finding an appropriate measure of brand equity is vital in order for companies to ensure
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that they protect this valuable asset. In his Risk Management article, Knapp claims that managers must remain constantly vigilant to protect their brand equity, since a declining brand image poses a significant risk to company earnings. If a brand loses its distinctive image in the minds of consumers, then the branded product becomes more like a commodity and must compete on the basis of price rather than value. Customer loyalty decreases, which has a corresponding negative effect on market share and profit margins. In order to prevent this decline, Knapp recommends that companies consider the impact of major decisions on consumer perceptions and brand equity. Every action taken by managementincluding the introduction of new products or advertising strategies, or the decision to lay off employees or relocate a factoryshould be assessed for its effect on brand equity.

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Chapter 4 Brand Repositioning

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Brand Repositioning:-

Brand Repositioning - changing the appeal of a brand in order for it to attract new market segments; brand repositioning may or may not involve modifying the Product . Brand Repositioning is an attempt to change consumer perceptions of a particular brand.

Repositioning is a change, principally about triggering the vision, mission and values in a new direction that is more suited for the brand in future. The location of a brand in relation to its competitors in some pre-defined space. The space may be defined by criteria used by consumers, such as "value for money" or "age of consumer" etc.

Following are main factors that play an important role in defining a brand repositioning.

1) Brand Attributes -What the brand delivers through features and benefits to Consumers 2) Consumer Expectations -What consumers expect to receive from the brand. 3) Competitor attributes -What the other brands in the market offer through features and benefits to consumers. 4) Price -An easily quantifiable factor Your prices vs. your competitors prices. 5) Consumer perceptions -The perceived quality and value of your brand in consumers minds (i.e., does your brand offer the cheap solution, the good value for the money solution, the high-end, high-price tag solution, etc.?)

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Chapter 5 Brand Personality

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Brand Personality

Brand Personality is a set of human characteristics associated with a brand. Personality is how the brand behaves. Gender, age, socio-economic class, psycho graphic, emotional characteristics. Following are few examples

Marlboro is masculine while Virginia slims is feminine. IBM is Older while Apple is Younger. India Today is old fashioned while Out Look is trendier. Coke is confirming while Pepsi is irreverent.

Brand Personality, is like human personality, is both distinctive and enduring. In other word brand personalitys is weighted average of previous impression. In consumers mind, these impressions merge to form overall concept of what to expect from brand. Importantly, brand personality is often a sustainable point of differentiation.

Sustainable because it is very difficult to copy a personality. Brand Personality is eagerly searched by brand strategies and researches. Differences in responses from different consumers provides useful insights. Personality traits are what the brand will live and die for. Activities such as events sponsored by the brand will influence its personality. Ponds sponsoring Femina Miss India contest. Pepsi sponsoring Cricket matches.

A symbol can be the powerful influence of the brand personality since it can be controlled and can have extremely strong association. e.g a) Apples bitten apples. b) Nike swoosh c) Metlifes peanuts characteristics.
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The personality thats represents a functional benefits or attribute may be relatively ineffective if it lacks a visual image established in consumers mind. A country or region of origin can add credibility to an identity. It can generate a strong personality that provides a quality cue and a key point of differentiation.

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Chapter 6 Case Study of Brand Maggi

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The Maggi Brand in India

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Case Background Nestle India Limited is the market leader in Indian Noodle Market with its Maggi Brand of Noodles which was pioneer brand launched in 1983 in the packaged food market of India. It took the challenge and established Maggi in Indian market considered to be conservative and typical about food consumption. It appropriate realization of target segment, effective positioning and effective promotion and sales made Maggi to Noodles in India as Xerox it to photocopier.

NIL had introduced sauces, ketchups and soups under Maggi brand to reap benefit of brand popularity and image and contribute to financial gains by 1990. Maggi also became successful in sauces, ketchups and soups Market in India. Though NIL tried to extend to other ready to eat products like pickles, cooking aids and paste, It was unsuccessful so dumped those products. Maggi Brand of products sustained recession in 2000 and 2001 in India by introducing economy packets.

To fulfill novelty needs of customers and revitalize Maggi Noodles Brand NIL made different attempts by introducing new formulation to new taste but customers resisted change and Maggi had to reintroduce Maggi Noodles in same taste. Maggi Noodle had till 2005 five product line on noodles with four variant in Maggi 2 Minutes Noodle. In 2006 in compliance with NIL target to be health and Wellness Company Maggi repositioned it as health and taste food products. NIL has also introduced with taste and product line in Sauces and Soup Market under Maggi to catch new segment, revitalize brand, compete with other producers and fulfill expectation of customers.

In 2005 Maggi brand worth was 3.7 billion from 1.7 billion market worth in 1.7 billion in 2003. Maggi Noodle is Market leader with around 80% market share in Noodles/Pasta and Maggi Sauce is market leader with almost 37% of market share in 2005 in 1.8 billion market of India. Knorr has taken over Maggi in Soup market recently. In 2005

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Maggi was the highest spender in the Promotion and Sales in the Indian Market in the Noodles Category.

Maggi is competing with Heinz Sauces and Ketchup, Knoor Soups, Kissin Sauces and Ketchup, Top Ramen, Sunfeast Pasta Wai Wai and 2 PM in corresponding categories of products and variants Maggi Comes to India teething troubles Maggi noodles was launched in India in the early1980s. Carlo M. Donati, the present Chairman and Managing Director of Nestle India Ltd, brought the instant noodle brand to India during his short stint here in the early eighties. At that time, there was no direct competition. The first competition came from the ready-to- eat snack segment which included snacks like samosas, biscuits or maybe peanuts, that were usually the bought out type. The second competition came from the homemade snacks like pakoras or sandwiches. So there were no specific buy and make snack! Moreover both competitors had certain drawbacks in comparison. Snacks like samosas are usually bought out, and outside food is generally considered unhygienic and unhealthy. The other competitor, homemade snacks overcame both these problems but had the disadvantage of extended preparation time at home. Maggi was positioned as the only hygienic home made snack! Despite this, Nestl faced difficulties with their sales after the initial phase. The reason being, the positioning of the product with the wrong target group.

Nestle had positioned Maggi as a convenience food product aimed at the target group of working women who hardly found any time for cooking. Unfortunately this could not hold the product for very long. In the course of many market researches and surveys, the firm found that children were the biggest consumers of Maggi noodles. Quickly they repositioned it towards the kids segment with various tools of sales promotion like colour pencils, sketch pens, fun books, Maggi clubs which worked wonders for the brand.

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Why the specific Brand positioning? Maggi was positioned as 2-minute noodles with a punch line that said Fast to cook! Good to eat! And this gave the implied understanding to the consumer that it was a between meals snack. The company could have easily positioned the product as a meal, either lunch or dinner. But, it chose not to do so, because the Indian consumer mindset did not accept anything other than rice or roti as a meal. Hence trying to substitute it with noodles would have been futile. The firm did not position it as a readyto-eat meal either, as the housewife prefers to make a meal for her kids rather than buy it for them. And if she can make it in two minutes with very little effort, then obviously its a hit with her! Whats more, if kids also love the taste, the product is as good as sold! So the 2-minute funda coupled with the yummy taste worked!

BRAND STORY Launched in 5 flavors initially Masala, chicken, Capsicum, sweet & sour, and Lasagna Maggi had to fight hard to be accepted by Indian consumers with their hard-to-change eating habits. The packaged food market was very small at this time, Nestle had to promote noodles as a concept, before it could promote Maggi as a brand. It therefore devised a two-pronged strategy to attract mothers on the convenience plank and lure kids on the fun plank. Gradually, the market for instant noodles began to grow. The company also decided to focus on promotions to increase the brand awareness. In the initial years, Nestle promotional activities for Maggi included schemes offering gifts( such as toys and utensils) in return for empty noodles pack.

According to analysits the focus on promotion turned out to be the single largest factor responisible for Maggis rapid acceptance. Nestle\s Managers utilized promotions as measured to meet their sales target. Gradually, sales promotion became a crutch for Maggi noodles sales. Later many of the Maggis extensions also made considerable use of promotional schemes. The focus of all Maggis extensions was more on below the
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line activities rather than direct communication. In addition to promotional activities, Maggi associated itself with main stream television programme and advertised heavily on kids programme and channels. After its advertisements with taglines like mummi bhookh lagi hai, bas do minute and fast to cook good to eat Maggis popularity became highly attributed to its extremely high appeal to children. As a result, Maggis annual growth reportedly touched 15% during its initial years.

Key Issues

How Nestle India Limited is ahead in Noodles Market with brand Maggi since 1982 How NIL extended its brand and line of products to leverage the brand and established Maggi as family brand. NILs positioning and repositioning strategy to catch market and consumer expectation. How to continue NIL capability to Maintian Point of Difference ( POD) and Point of Party (POP) while bradn extension and repositioning. Maggis challenge to protect its market leader position in situations where there is emergence of competitors like Hindustan Lever Limited, Indo Nissan, ITC, Dabur India, Heinz are competing with their corresponding brand on the product category.

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BCG Matrix ( Maggi Brand Products in 2010 ) STAR QUESTION? CASHCOW DOG

STARS : Maggi Noodles is the market leader with 80 % market share in Noodles Market and Maggi Sauces and Ketchup is leader with 37 % market share. The products are producing cash for the company consistently. The Market is growing by 15 % in the Product Category of Noodles.

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QUESTIONS ? : Maggi Soups is the category which is in Question mark as the market is growing and the brand as less market share then market leader Knorr brand of Hidustan Lever Limited. There are more chances for Maggi Soups to go to dog it does not stay competitive and increase market share in the category.

SWOT Analysis of Maggi as Brand

Strengths Established Family Brand Strong Global Corporate Brand ( NIL) Specialization in food processing category marketing and distribution in Urban market Presence of other product segments of food category : Dairy Products, Chocolate, Infant food Pioneer and Leader so 1st mover advantage in Noodles, Sauce, Ketchups and Soup market Nestle symbolization of warm, family & shelter. Research and Development Division in India New Noodles Plant in Uttarnchal

Weakness Generic Brand to Noodles in India Low rural market presence constraints Uniform Brand for all food category Brand Proliferation

Opportunities Growing package and canned food market in India by 15% annually. High brand awareness of Indian consumer Other product category like Biscuits, Chips and Ready to Eat Market still unexplored.
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Opportunity to be substitute to other snacks category of food products.

Threats Competitors with long history in product category Internationally like, Heinz Sauce and ketchups of Heinz Indian, Top Ramen in Noodle and Knorr Soups. Single product focused competitors like Heinz sauce and Wai Wai Noodles. Less Entry Barriers in the Market segment for product category ITCs strong base in Indian Market. Substitute Product to Product Segment.

Possible Alternatives :-

Strengthen and use the Distribution : NIL should focus on distribution channels and use of the distribution channel to expand its market to Rural India with products targeted to the market. It is the way it could increase its volume of sales.

Increase the Usage of Maggi Brand Products: Since Maggi Noodles and Maggi Sauce is market leader it has to adopt strategy to increase the usage of the product to protect its market share. As it cannot further grow sales drastically in the same segment, only way is to increase product usage like Noodles for breakfast Ketchups in biscuits.

Lunch Health Awareness Promotion Campaign : NIL should launch Health Awareness campaign to educate consumers about the benefits of health food. It could sponsors health camps, publish health information.

Enter into other product category like Biscuits, Chips and Snacks with New Brand: To enlarge its domain, NIL should enlarge its product segment. It would spread economies of scale to customers in the form of price.
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BEST COURSE OF ACTION

Introduce different new brand or acquire emerging brand in biscuits, chips and snacks category.

Maggi though has been able to differentiate itself from other Noodles, Maggi being taken as generic to Noodles is hampering other extended product category. Competitors have high grounds to capture the market differentiating then from being Maggi. It makes others possible product category vulnerable if lunched under Maggi. So to avoid proliferation of brand and introduce new products to capture opportunities in other snacks and ready to eat product category NIL has to introduce new branding strategy.

As pasta of ITC has been seen as products capturing the market of noodles and Maggi failing to lunch pasta under Maggi brand also support the argument for new brand introduction by NIL.

As Indian Market is Brand conscious, other competitors are coming up with more Indianized brand of products, and as Indian being more aware of their culture and large segment being typical and conservative about their culture, there care more chances that NIL would be successful if it create a brand close to Indian culture in wording to positioning. As India is growing, Old Indian Brands are also regaining momentum worldwide, NIL could catch the trend of market.

By doing so, NIL could avoid the draw backs associated with the Maggi brand. It could position new brand in competition with other competitors brand where there is no fit of product with the Maggi brand. NIL other option is acquiring products manufacturers of different products like biscuits, chips and snacks as it is very essential for its market
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leader position. Other companies have advantage of such products. ITC has biscuits to it. Hindustan Lever has tea to it. India is huge market where distribution advantage plays major role and economies of scale pays back. So its is important for NIL to concentrate on other ready to eat category to benefit consumers from economies of scale reflect in price.

Repositioning of Maggi

Nestl India Ltd. (NIL), the Indian subsidiary of the global FMCG major, Nestl SA, introduced the Maggi brand in India in 1982, with its launch of Maggi 2 Minute Noodles,an instant noodles product. With the launch of Maggi noodles, NIL created an entirely new food category - instant noodles - in the Indian packaged food market. Because of its first-mover advantage, NIL successfully managed to retain its leadership in the instant noodles category even until the early 2000s. Over the years, NIL extended the Maggi brand to a variety of culinary products like soups, sauces and ketchups, and cooking aids among others. However, these product extensions were not as successful as the instant noodles. In 2005, NIL started offering a range of new 'healthy' products under the Maggi brand, in a bid to attract healthconscious consumers.

This case looks at the various phases in the product life cycle of Maggi noodles in India. It talks about the various measures taken by NIL to keep the Maggi brand fresh in the minds of Indian consumers. The case also talks about the various extensions of the Maggi brand and tries to analyze why only the sauces and ketchups category, among all the other product extensions, managed to succeed. Maggi became successful because it understood consumers . The brand never wanted to change Indian consumer's habit. It did not had ambitions about changing Indian's breakfast or dinner preferences. What Maggi did was to slowly attach itself to Indian consumer's need without disruption.
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Maggi was also closely watching consumer preferences. When consumers wanted healthy food, Maggi launched Atta Noodle variants that was healthy . More importantly this move addressed the concerns of Homemakers. The brand extended itself to multiple segment but without diluting the core brand equity. Maggi did change the masala [taste maker]few years back and sales declined and the company was forced to go back to the old masala and nestle ran an ad campaign ,that old taste is back. The resultant yellow masala-flavoured spongy strands were wolfed down by us and before you could say noodles, Maggi became a quintessential Indian food. As a consumer, Maggi has been part of numerous memorable experiences of my life.

From being a midnight snack to helping with early hours of mugging for exams to eating plates of cheese and anda Maggi at the night canteen after an evening of drunken revelry. From hot Maggi after getting drenched in the rain to it being the first cooking experience for numerous youngsters when the folks were away. From carrying packets of it on a trek to carrying packets for friends who live abroad (they insist that the Indian flavours are unique). Everyone, rich or poor, has his or her own Maggi tale to tell. As an observer of branding and advertising too, the brands a shoo-in for the India Marketing Hall of Fame, if such a hall were ever to be constituted. For starters this was the brand that pioneered the entire category of packaged food in India. Not easy in a country where freshly cooked food was the norm.

The outstanding sampling exercise apart, the first commercial for the brand was one of the most memorable commercials of its time (from that great ad agency of the 1980s, HTA Delhi). It was probably the first example of Hinglish in a mainstream commercial from the opening Mummy bhook lagi hai to the tag line that went Fast to cook and good to eat, Maggi makes a tasty treat and two minutes became a part of the popular lexicon.

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It further discusses the measures taken by NIL to reposition Maggi as a 'health product'. The case ends with a discussion whether NIL would be successful in sustaining this new image for Maggi in the market.

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References

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References http://www.google.co.in/ http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.nestle.in/ http://books.google.com

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