HIDDEN BUT SEEKED

Who doesn’t remember the 1989 commercial of Parle G which says SAB KO PATA HAI JI...SWAD BHARE SHAKTI BHARE...PARLE G. Well from 1989 to date, Parle Products has added a lot of SKUs to the Indian shelves – brands like KRACKJACK, Monaco, Milk Shakti etc. One of the brands it has on its platter in the premium segment is HIDE n SEEK. Rightly described on its website, Here’s a choco biscuit that flirts with your taste buds. Seek out the chocolate chips that aren't really hidden. And relish a delectable experience as they melt in your mouth. Also know to work as an effective icebreaker it’s easy to see why it’s tasty itna, ki dil aajayee. Effectively communicated by a flirty Hritik Roshan and a series of beauties like Isha Sherwani and others. The first ad showed Hritik Roshan at poolside playing hide n seek with a lady. Nice way to launch a brand and help the audience build the image. The recall value would increase undoubtedly since the the TG remembers HIDE n SEEK and Hritik and the commercial comes in their mind. Now they don’t stop with just one campaign, they have a series of such campaigns – the best seller yet was the Isha Sherwani (Kisna fame) where she refuses to dance and Hritik (with Hide n Seek) makes her do so. Point to be noted is the tune which was born out of this ad is still carried on – where we’ll get in a moment.Followed by cafe ad and the fight ad

Now lets talk about extensions! Since about a week or so, PARLE has been showing a (rather lethargic) commercial of Line Extension for HIDE n SEEK. There are 3 models who carry with them banners of HIDE n SEEK’s 3 new variants – ORANGE, MINT AND COFFEE. Ok! Didn’t notice it yet? Not your fault. Probably they need to realise if you want TG to welcome your extension, you gotto shout. Where is Hritik Roshan – your brand ambassador? Ok if you think why is it that HIDE n SEEK is going crazy behind launching variants – you mus know this is not their first attempt. They have extended the variants of HIDE n SEEK Chocolate by launching the Rs. 5 SKU too. Wow the one that has 4 odd biscuits packed and comes in a huge PET Jar. Man that is penetration. Also sometime last year they launched the HIDE n SEEK Milano - A cookie with a reputation for romance. As the site says, Indulge in the sinful taste of Milano and everything that follows it.

So actually the brand has done all to leverage on its chocolate equity. So the net logical decision was to extend it to suit more taste buds. But why these flavours? There is a reason -Pioneering the chocolate-chip cookie category with its Hide & Seek brand in 1998, Parle had subsequently extended the brand into three variants - orange, coffee and mint. However, poor offtake led the company to discontinue these products while the Hide & Seek chocolate-chip cookies continued to be successful. Claims Sundara Rajan,"For the first time, Good Day will have a challenger brand at the national level. All this time Good Day had competition in the cookie market mainly from the regional players." In fact, cookies, which generally have high butter content, are manufactured by a host of regional players (mainly the local bakeries) and the big national players will have to fight for their share in this segment from the unorganised local players.

Explaining the reasons for the earlier failure of the Hide & Seek variants, Lakshmi Goyal, Business Director, O&M, the advertising agency handing the account, says, "The chocolate variant had a broader appeal and this led to the other variants falling by the wayside." The `exotic' nature of the variants did not help acceptance in the market.

Also I don’t want to get into another story here but fortunately for the second, Parle Products Private Ltd has withdrawn the variants of its chocolate-chip cookie brand, Hide & Seek. Having extended the Hide & Seek franchise early 2005 to two new flavours - butter and cashew badaam - the biscuit major fortunately then restricted it to chocolate-chip cookie. Explaining the rationale behind withdrawing the variants, Mr Mayank Shah, Product Manager, Parle Products Private Ltd, said: "Hide & Seek has a strong association with chocolate. It has always been accepted as a chocolate chip cookie brand and people were not ready to accept the butter and cashew variants. We have now de-linked the variants and re-introduced them as Parle Cookies. The products will soon be re-launched nationally."

To sum it up, I’d say, that yes it is weird to imagine the brand which partially outsmarted Legacy Brand GOOD DAY by entering the choco-cookie variant has got into flavours like Orange, Mint and Coffee but if we want to leverage on the brand equity, you have to come up with variants. Acceptable or not – only time will decide but surely my take is if you want to make a success out of these variants , one – we need to believe these will work gloriously- its ultimately about how we position them in the minds of the TG. Two- get a brand ambassador or work on the dates of Hritik Roshan- since you need him to take it ahead – the magic of HIDE n SEEK and Milano will persist. 

REF:

Parle Media Centre

WHADA FIZZ...

You gotto be kidding if you don’t remember the fizz ParleAgro created with the launch of Appy Fizz created during its launch in June 2005. The target was clear –Gen Y and the positioning was abso clear- “A Cool Drink to Hang out with”.

The personality of the drink was a cool dude aged in late teens or early 20s and typically fun loving, pocky – just like that chilled out dude you hang out with. I briefly remember last year when I and a a friend of mine met this gentleman at Parle Agro (ahh one of those sponsorship-cold-visits for our college fest virtualities) and we asked him why Appy Fizz didn’t come in glass bottles. He said that the apples are original Kashmiri apples which are of top grade quality and the taste would be hampered if packaging wouldn’t be PET. Appy Fizz is available in SKUs of 300ml, 500ml and 1 litre PET bottles, priced at Rs18, Rs25 and Rs45 respectively. Ok Gotcha! So you have an array of variants in terms of sizes lined up. A slight putoff was the price tag it carried but it was a clear show of premium which all of us were ready to pay – afterall it was the ONLY fruit based fizz which was fun to drink and unlike the fantas and the mirindas. Ok I also gathered the fact in the meet that Appy Fizz initially faced a lot of problems from the MNC Brands while placing it at the multiplexes and youth zones! The sales team did a fabulous job though backed by the strong pull that brand created. Who can forget the amazing series of TVCs the brand had right!! Its all about the RE-CALL Effect, I still remember my engineering days when few people carried Appy Fizz bottles (refilled with drinking water) in colleges as a signature – “I’m cool”. And that induced others to buy the product. Yea packaging rocks man!

Now if we go by text books, product life cycle says that Appy Fizz would still in the end of the growth stage, the brand enjoys a decent brand pull. But maybe the craving for the brand has slightly passified, afterall the name fizz still has soda in it and the sudden buzz about the “oh-what-about-my-calories” effect is turning to people’s mentality. Right so what do we do @ Parle Agro! We have a new product launch (I’ll capture it soon) which was recently announced. Parle Agro is entering the 100 % juice market in a bid to take it head on with established brands like Dabur’s Real, PepsiCo’s Tropicana and Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid. Afterall the Indian juice and juice-based drinks market is standing at over Rs 1,200 crore with market growing at around 20 per cent YOY. In a recent press release, Nadia Chauhan, director, Parle Agro, told Business Standard that its premium apple drink, Appy Fizz, has been introduced in a new avatar. “Appy Fizz isn’t just a sparkling apple drink; as a brand it is representative of the youth. And the youth is all about constant change and experiments — with looks and style, with ideas and beliefs. Appy Fizz’s new look is in keeping with that kind of a mindset”.

 Wow! In sync with the statement, check out the the latest commercial by Appy Fizz new avatar  

The ad shows the bottle of Appy Fizz changing and surprising his buddies with the new avatar. ''We maintained the fun quotient Appy Fizz had in the previous campaigns but added a lot of style since it was going to be about the New Look'', says Sajan Raj Kurup, chairman and chief creative officer of Creativeland Asia, the agency that created the new packaging design and the communication. ''Bold, unrestrained, unabashed and cool that should sum up the look we have created for Appy Fizz. It pretty much mirrors the youth values today', he adds.

Speaking about the kind of detailing in the new packaging, Nadia Chauhan says, ''It's about engaging the consumer at the first point of contact and engineering the right kind of start to the relationship''. Yea if we talk about packaging, as the 5^th P, Parle Agro has a history attached with itself. The company was a pioneer in introducing fruit drinks in Tetra Pak's in India, and the first to introduce fruit drinks in PET bottles in India – who can forget the “frooti” packs we all craved for as kids right!

Do you know the APPY FIZZ also does a CSR Activity on Global Warming?No click here

Its called "DONATE YOUR ICE" where APPY FIZZ and his friends educate us about the funda thats gripping the world @ this point of time. But still it would be gr8 if they have a better gripper for the youth connect something like TATA TEA has come up with (see my previous post) 

My take for the repositioning it has done,3/5...you are revitalizing the need for the brand among the TG. This ad will induce the users to go and try out the new fizz.  The 2 points that I kept reserve is since the product perse is still the same!! Looking for more Appy!! Cheerz and way to go!!!

SOURCE:

Business Standard Article

PARLE AGRO