While many FMCG companies witnessed slow growth rates in FY20 owing to the Covid-19-led lockdown, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Amul) reported an increase in its turnover for the fiscal.
The brand has not only evolved in terms of its marketing and engagement strategies but also emerged stronger out of adversities. So there could be none better to discuss reimagining marketing in the new normal than Amul’s MD RS Sodhi.
Sodhi joined Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, exchange4media Group & Businessworld at the e4m eConclave to discuss how Amul re-imagined its marketing strategies, impacted consumer behaviour and adapted to the changes with agility. Sodhi revealed that the out of home ice-cream and beverage HoReCa segment was the one impacted due to the pandemic but is on the recovery path with things now opening up. “25%-30% of sales in the HoReCa sector are back. 60-70% sales are still to come. In terms of ice-creams, we are back at 72-80% of the business,” he shared.
Owing to the nationwide lockdown that started in March, consumers, now more than ever, were in distress because they don’t know whether food will be available to them. Sharing how the dairy giant tackled the situation and assured people, he remarked, "After the PM speech on 24th of March I made a short video saying Amul milk and all other products will be available as it is an essential product and we assured that it was available."
It was in the second or third week of March that the brand decided to come up with the idea of advertising during ‘Ramayan’ and ‘Mahabharat’, given that people were spending more time with families watching family-oriented programmes. "In my family too, my daughter, granddaughter, son and everyone else was watching TV together, which doesn't normally happen. So we thought why not put in more money here and double the budget,” Sodhi shared. And betting on the strategic value of the programmes worked wonders for the brand. “We got 10 x viewership compared to last year's IPL at 1/10th the price. It was a jackpot,” he asserted.
Moreover, the brand has also capitalized on the captive digital audience and interacted with them through the company’s digital channels with fun collaborations, innovation and recipe showcases, among other things. “We got 766 million views on Facebook with no expense as we started engaging the audience by showcasing simple homemade recipes where we got 2000 chefs for over 120 days,” he revealed.
Sodhi shared more learnings from the phase on investing in relationships, the importance of communication and having a diversified product portfolio: “During this COVID period, we only invested in relationship building. The one thing that gave us a lot of confidence and the biggest learning is to invest in relationship building,” he noted.
Sodhi also stressed on the importance of communication. “Despite of the lockdown, confidence in the brand increased which was visible owing to the constant communication and Aldo available at a very affordable price. Brands that are trustworthy gain maximum,” he stated.
Furthermore, Sodhi opined that what worked well for Amul was having a diversified product portfolio and multi-channel distribution. The brand has forayed into launching a spate of immunity-boosting offerings as concerns around health and safety become big. "In the food category, one must keep on inventing and launching new products to stay on the top of their game,” he remarked.