Parle Products, an age old name in the FMCG industry of the country has been a consistent player when it comes to catering the mass with their food products and condiments. In the last eighteen months, the brand has launched a new variant in every two months.  Nabamita Chatterjee interviews Pravin Kulkarni, General Manger - Parle Products, touching upon the brand's approach to shopper marketing, campaigns, in-store promos and more. Edited excerpts …..

Could you share with us your whole approach towards shopper marketing? Do you have a dedicated team for the same and how do you train them?   

We have separate teams for every region who caters to all the institutional marketing requirements for the brands at MT and GT, under which comes shopper marketing. They make the inventories available and examine whether all the products are properly visible in the floor or not. Also, we work out lucrative schemes with the retailers for the customers.  

Our R&D department closely works with these teams and share the research findings as well and give them first hand training by taking them to the floor and discuss the areas like visibility quotient, maintaining the inventories and such to increase further the engagement with the consumers.

Who do you partner with for your shopper marketing research and campaigns?

As and when required we partner with different agencies for this. In particular AC Nielsen has been highly instrumental in helping us with data needed and we try to utilise those inferences while planning the shopper marketing strategy for our target customers.

Recently have you introduced any new shopper marketing initiative for Parle Products?

In modern trade, we roll out different branding activities in number of hyperstore chains where we do complete branding of the trolleys, introduce interesting design for stock keeping units etc.

For GT, recently we have taken around 30,000 stores across the country and went in with a contract for positioning the premium as well as new brands of Parle Products to give a better visibility. Our sales and marketing team has been provided adequate trainings to deal with such plans.
 
Recently Parle has been focusing on various on-ground activations and contests in stores to connect with the target consumer? How does it help the brand in positioning their name in MT and GT market?

These activities definitely arouse a certain level of curiosity among the customers while they are shopping for these kind of products. For example, if we are having an on-ground activation in a mall, then we try to give a complete brand experience to the consumers by introducing innovative promotional elements both at point-of-purchase or point-of- sales touch points.

Approximately, what percentage of your budget do you allot for shopper marketing? Has there been a change in the shopper marketing budgets in recent times?

We generally spend around 2-3 per cent of our advertising budget on shopper marketing. In recent times, with the changing scenario it is growing by 0.3-0.5 per cent as a whole. 

As a brand what kind of changes you are observing especially when it comes to the buying trends of the consumers?

If we consider the metros and the big cities, the consumers prefer the MT outlets for buying their daily goods compared to smaller cities and towns. So, we observed that Pan India modern trade is contributing 7-8 per cent of share in our overall sales and is increasing at the same.

How do you target your shoppers through various retail formats? Any example you can share from the past which resulted into high sales conversion due to the great visibility in MT or GT?

Being a mass brand through GT, we try to cater to consumers more with products like Parle G, Marie, Top, Monaco, KrackJack, etc. which has a mass appeal. Through MT, we generally market our premium and new products like Milano, Golden Arcs, Hide & Seek Bourbon and such. In the past eighteen months we have launched so many new brands to suit the changing needs of the customers. Thus we plan our shopper marketing initiatives at GT and MT keeping these insights in mind.

We have also observed that the modern trade consumers are value conscious and thus we try to give more combo pack offers in those chain of stores. Also in MT outlets with a plethora of products there is nobody to push the particular product, thus innovative visibility and shopper marketing ideas has to be renewed from time to time. For example, when we launched Golden Arcs we engaged various branding options like the racks and trolleys and rolled out interesting FSU's in MT and it really helped us in reaching out to the potential buyers instantly.  
 
How do you see the market growth in this segment?

We are observing that the mass brands are all stagnant and there is growth only in the premium range when it comes to this category and it is increasing at the rate of 12-15 per cent. Mostly all biscuit manufacturers are expanding their product portfolio with premium ranges only. Also in the last few years many strong local players have emerged and they are spending a lot in the branding and promotions especially in markets like West Bengal which is giving tough competition to all the national players, also MNC's like Oreo is doing great in the Indian market.   

What is your current plan to consolidate more businesses and the expected growth in your turnover for the coming fiscal?

Historically, Parle Products have had huge market share in the North and West zone of the country. We are trying hard to consolidate the business more in the East and South zone. In the coming financial year, we are targeting an increase of 12-15 per cent in our turnover.