‘We’ve been heavily advertising on TV, since Doordarshan days’

Krishnarao Buddha, Senior Category Head – Marketing, Parle Products talks about Parle’s innovative marketing strategies, the optimal media mix and how the brand employs different mediums to increase its reach and visibility.  

Can you shed some light on your brand journey and how it has strengthened over the years? Also, what are the innovative marketing strategies you use to reach out to the masses?

As a brand, Parle started its journey way back in 1929 with confectionery. Our entry into the biscuits category happened ten years later. In 1939, when we decided to enter into the biscuits category, it went on to become a big opportunity for the country.  

During pre-independence and even post-independence, we saw a significant rise in consumption of biscuits and confectionery. Back then, only imported biscuits were available in the country, and they were quite expensive. Not everybody was privileged enough to afford them. So, the promoters thought why should biscuits be available to only a select few.   Can we do something to provide India with an affordable biscuit? And with that began Parle’s journey and soon we were able to transform into the ‘Bharat ka Apna Biscuit’ brand.  

As we progressed in our endeavours, we were able to provide India with an easy, affordable and exciting range of biscuits, confectionery, salty snacks, bakery products, breakfast cereals, and now even packaged aata. We have been extremely successful in providing our consumers with quality products at an affordable price. At Parle, it has been our constant effort to come up with innovative products. Innovation has, therefore, been our first and foremost strategy as far as reaching out to consumers or filling the need gap is concerned.

We have always been firm believers in brand building and have done that by advertising our brands on the most prominent mediums available. Before television came to the country, we advertised heavily in magazines and newspapers (print media), outdoor medium and Radio as well. And once TV came into existence, we started advertising big time on it, right from Doordarshan days till today. So, we're quite aggressive as far as television as a medium is concerned. Now we see that there is a change in consumption, in terms of media where a lot of the audiences have moved towards digital. And so, we have made sure that we have a significant digital presence so as to ensure that we are continuously reaching out to and engaging with our audience. That's been our second approach.

We have always looked at all other popular avenues to reach out to our consumers through BTL promotions, out of home, in-cinema, or by participating in various events that attract a huge crowd. For example, we have been consistently present at the most significant events and fairs in the country like ‘Nauchandi’, ‘Pushkar Mela’ and the ‘Kumbh Mela’. These are all very large-scale events with extremely high footfall, which gives us great visibility for our brands.  

The next strategy has been to ensure that the product pricing is apt. We have always believed in delivering high value to our consumers. Over the years, we have offered our consumers good quality products, at the right price and the right value proposition. This has enabled us to win the trust of our consumers and sustain as well as grow our consumer franchise.  Many such strategic initiatives have ensured that our journey and relationship with our consumers is a highly successful one.

Likewise, we have always ensured that our conventional trade partners who have helped us reach the last mile, have been adequately rewarded and taken care of. We have always looked at our field force and our trade partners as a source of feedback, which is most valuable for us. For these reasons, we have continuously changed or tweaked our strategies to cater to the desires of both our consumers and trade partners.

Which medium do you aggressively use for increasing your brand visibility and why? Can you elaborate on how you allocate your marketing budget on various platforms?

We have been spending predominantly on television even today. However, the digital medium has also started growing manifold for us. Just about five years ago, digital was a meagre 2% of our marketing spends. Today it has grown up to a significant 10 to 13% of the budget. So, straight away it has gone up by about five times. We are estimating that this number may further go up to about 20 to 25% in the next three to five years.  

Marketing budget is allocated based on the requirement. Just as an example, if I have 100 rupees as my budget, I'll deploy maybe 70-75 rupees for television and about 12 to 15 rupees for digital and the balance will be used for other mediums. But five years ago, almost 80-85 rupees was allocated for television. So, we are witnessing a change in media consumption trends and patterns, and commensurate to that my budget allocation for different mediums is also changing. It is basically about following the customer, where he or she is.  

What is the marketing mix of your brand campaigns? Do you think post-pandemic, the brand messaging and propositions in India have changed?

To an extent, yes, even though it looks like we are almost back to normalcy or the new normal. Since 2022 the majority of the organizations or businesses have reopened. People are back in offices. But still there are some businesses and functions that are still operating from home or from remote locations. So, based upon that, we have tweaked our communication. 

For example, if, as opposed to pre-covid, a lot more audiences are still going to be operating from home, then the communication will be slightly different from what it would have been had all of them been in office or simply out of home. And this is because there are some categories like confectionery and salty snacks that are predominantly for out of home consumption. So, there was a certain impact on these categories during covid. But now that schools, colleges and offices have all resumed, we are seeing a significant increase in their consumption. Further, the pandemic has also increased consumption of out of home categories within the homes as people purchased these items to munch at home for satisfying their late-night cravings during the lockdowns. That's a noticeable change in the consumption pattern. 

TV news is a very popular medium of communication due to its reach and loyal viewers. Do you think brands should advertise more on TV as compared to other media platforms?

At this point in time, Television is the primary medium of advertising for Parle. Our dependence on it is as high as 75-80%. However, for certain brands we have already started exclusive digital advertising. So, to address the change after the pandemic, we have started coming up with exclusive DVCs or digital video commercials which are focused on a digital savvy audience. To reiterate, Television is still the primary medium for us. It is followed by digital. 

Do you still advertise on news channels? Can you share some insights on how you market your brand via TV?

When it comes to advertising on TV, we are not really heavy on news. If you look at the range of Parle's products, the majority of our brands are targeted at either housewives or kids. So, that's our primary TG for most of the confectionery, salty snacks, and biscuit brands. There are very few brands that are targeted at adults, which is why we do not have a significant presence on news genres. But other genres like GECs, kids, music, movies, infotainment, English entertainment, and English youth GECs are important for us, and therefore, we strive to maintain a significant and continued presence there.  

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