Parle Products takes on counterfeiting with latest campaign

Parle Products has launched an integrated brand campaign to strengthen brand recognition for sub-brands in the confectionary space and inform consumers that these sub-brands come from the house of Parle.

Parle identified product clusters with similar branding issues and has created integrated campaigns for each of the clusters. One of the main problems that Parle is tackling with this campaign is the counterfeiting of popular brands like Mango Bite, Kaccha Mango and Melody. “These brands have been prone to counterfeiting. So much so, that the counterfeits are selling five times that of the originals,” said Krishna Rao, Category Head, Parle Products.

This campaign conceptualised by Taproot Dentsu follows the recent ‘Naam Toh Suna Hi Hoga’ campaign that Parle Products launched around IPL 2017. Calling it Phase 1 of the campaign, Rao said that in Phase 1 the core objective was to connect the individually strong brands to the corporate brand of Parle, while with Phase 2 Parle has identified certain issues that they wanted to solve.

Phase 2 of the campaign seems very similar to Phase 1 in terms of the look and feel of the campaign but solves a very different problem, Rao pointed out. “We have some products that sell very well but do not have enough awareness among consumers. So, we wanted to generate awareness about these brands. We have tackled counterfeiting and name change with these campaigns. In Phase 1, we tried connecting to the mother brand and with this campaign we are focusing on individually strong brands and customised solutions for each of them,” he said.

Among the problems that Parle has set out to solve, counterfeiting is the most critical one. “Some of our brands are so popular that there are several counterfeits of these brands in the market. Candy making is so easy that you will see a lot of rip-offs of these products. You will see products with names like Kaccha Kairi, Parag Mango Bit, Pearl Mango Bit and sometimes Mango Bite,” he said.

He said that people don’t even hesitate to copy the same name because these are low involvement products with a price point of 50 paise and Re 1. Therefore, consumers do not care as much even if they are consuming a counterfeit. “We wanted to bring in the awareness that under the disguise of these names people are consuming products that may not have followed the best practices for candy manufacturing,” Rao said. The agency’s solution for this was the tagline ‘Naam Toh Yaad Rahega.’ “We have also tackled the problem by saying that these products are irreplaceable using the line ‘Doosra Kuch Nahin Chalega.”

Speaking about Phase 1, Rao said that Parle has received extremely positive feedback for it. “We are in the process of tracking the numbers in terms of brand salience,” he added.

Rao said that Parle had set aside a budget of Rs. 50 crore for Phase 1 of the campaign during the IPL season. The budget for the six-week-long Phase 2 of the campaign is comparable to the budget for Phase 1 excluding the IPL influence.

He did not deny the possibility of a Phase 3 of the campaign. He said, “For now, it is wait and watch because we have just rolled out this campaign. We have few more products for which we could have another round as well.”

So far, as part of the two campaigns, Parle has focused its efforts on raising brand awareness for Cheeslings, Top Spin, Top Biscuit, Monaco, Happy Happy, Krackjack, 20:20, Parle Rusk, BakeSmith, Mazelo (Guava), Cafechino, Londonderry, Fab Jam in, Fab bonbon, Fab Milk sandwich, Mango bite, Kaccha Mango bite and Melody.