Cadbury in Rural Market

More than 75% of India’s population pop ulation lives in nearly 600,000 villages spread across its length and breadth. While 80% of this population earns enough to be on a marketers’ radar, the rest are way below the poverty line. This is just a sketch of the potential of the promising rural markets in India.

Managing such targets is certainly not a cakewalk considering the uneven landscape of India’s hinterland where the urban marketer has to grapple with challenges like low exposure to media, tradition bound joint families and poor infrastructure. Sheer size of the rural markets has now forced marketers to step out of their ivory towers and make sincere efforts towards understanding these.. Cadbury Retail Seeding Cadbury is a leading confectionery company company in India and enjoys a value market share of over 70% – its highest market share in the world. The category is largely consumed in urban areas with a 73% skew to urban markets and a 27% to rural. The company has followed a strategy of fuelling volume growth by introducing smaller unit packs at lower price points. With the objective of penetrating in rural markets, Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots (CDM) and CDM Eclairs were launched. The marketing challenge for the company was to build a sustainable model for wholesale sell out thereby creating demand for uncovered retailers. Though Cadbury's distribution network is strong in urban and semi-urban areas, rural pockets posed a challenge. The brand followed a three-pronged three-pronged approach to penetrate into into rural markets. The plan of action began be gan with retail seeding. Uncovered retail outlets were identified and confectionery items were placed on counter tops to catch the TG's attention. Excitement was built among the retailers by providing attractive offers and merchandise. Step 2 involved the identification of small time wholesaler who stocks products of various brands as exclusivity is not a viable option for him. Also, they were lured with bulk purchase schemes and merchandise. A data on these wholesalers was put together and shared with dealers and sales team of the company for relationship building. The last leg of the activity saw consumer activation. The project was started as a pilot in Maharashtra and scaled to seven other states including West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana and Karnataka Karna taka in a phased manner.

Outcome: Over 11,000 wholesalers in 5000 villages and towns were added to the company's distribution network. Additionally, 2 lakh retail outlets were covered with activation. Promotion

Cadbury India’s plans to reposition were no t initiated because it had to   beat its competitor’s as at that time Cadbury was already the market leader in chocolate confectionary market, but it was a proactive step that Cadbury’s took as at that moment the sales of Cadbury’s were increasing  but at a slow pace and the segment at that time to which the chocolates  were being targeted was not so big to provide a more faster growth. And so to overcome this challenge Cadbury’s came up with an idea to expand the segments to which it should appeal and get more business by  appealing to more and more target markets. This was a very beautifully  planned strategy and it catapulted Cadbury’s sales to newer heights and gave the brand a presence in almost every segment of people who can have the chocolates. In its initial years Cadbury’s chocolates were meant basically for the kids and the ads also revolved around that concept only in which parent’s  were seen trying to bribe or reward their children with Cadbury’s dairy  milk chocolates for getting them to do the things that they wanted them to do. But depending on just the kids as a market was a bit risky and as sales in this segment were not growing rapidly so Cadbury’s shifted the focus from kids to the adults. But this was a big challenge as in Indian market not many adults were thought to be consumers of chocolate and Cadbury’s changed this thing  with the help of ads under the campaign “kid in all of us”. Then from this campaign to the one 'Real Taste of Life' campaign, which had many  memorable executions, which people still fondly remember. Out of these the one which people still remember very fondly is the one in which a girl is shown breaking the security barriers and entering the cricket field to celebrate the victory of the country in the cricked match under the tag line “Kuch Khaas Hai Zindagi mein”. This campaign went on to be awarded 'The Campaign of the Century', in India at the Abby (Ad Club, Mumbai) awards. This thing was highlighted in one more ad under this campaign itself where a grandfather is shown playing with his grandson

helping make bubbles out of a tube after immersing in the soap filled  water, then showing a mother playing with her daughter, then showing a  young adult trying roller skates along with a young kid, a pregnant lady  demanding a chocolate from her husband saying that the kid in her  womb also wants it. These campaigns have been so touching that it made people go for them for sure and without the fear of eating them in public. Then moving on came the new campaign which was tried to tell people that chocolates can be had anytime through the ad campaign, “Khaane   Waalon Ko Khaane Ka Bahana Chahiye”. That meant that people who   want to have a chocolate can find any reason to have one and no particular occasion is required to wait for consuming the chocolates. This campaign showed that even the adults could have chocolates and this   was showcased by showing collective and shared moments among themselves. This campaign took the previous ad campaign even further  which showed that adults could go to any lengths to get their own bar of  chocolate. In this ad Cyrus Broacha is shown selling Cadbury’s Dairy  Milk chocolate on the street and people are giving their reasons for why  they eat Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate.   After this campaign to capture more and more target segments Cadbury’s launched another ad campaign i.e. “Kuch Meetha Ho jaye”. The message was clear that when anytime you feel that you are happy  and want to celebrate then you can have Cadbury’s Dairy Milk to celebrate the occasion. Amitabh Bachan was used as the celebrity  endorser in this ad showcasing that these moments are meant to be celebrated and so go on and celebrate them with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Then the campaign using the line “Pappu Paas Ho gaya” became a street   buzz and got huge success and in this campaign also Amitabh Bachan  was used as the Brand Ambassador for the brand to spread the message that “Jab Pappu paas ho jaye to kuch meetha ho jaye”. Then to appeal to the rural consumers an ad under the Kuch meetha ho  jaye campaign itself was launched under the “Radha Miss Palampur ban gaye and combining it with Rs 5”. Through this campaign a rural audience was targeted by showcasing this ad in a rural setup and people celebrate the occasion of Radha (a Cow) winning the title of Miss Palampur and the a small package was introduced with the price tag of  Rs. 5 which was considered affordable for rural consumers.

 After this to associate more with the working class Indian population an ad with the tagline” Meetha hai Khaana aaj pehli tarrekh hai was launched”. This was a very strategically crafted as in India most of the  working class gets its salary on the first day of every month and so this ad gave those people to celebrate that day with something meetha i.e. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Then after capturing most of the adult market segments what was left for the company, at this moment it seemed that Cadbury’s had done it all,  but for them it was just the beginning as they now decided to target the Festival occasions in India through the ad campaign “Is Diwali aap kise khush kar rahe hain”. This was important as in India people are very  fond of having mithai’s on festivals for having something sweet on the festival occasions, and the mithai market by some estimates is almost Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 crore in size and a large part of this market is unorganized. And when compared to this market the chocolate market is merely a fraction of the larger mithai market. Naturally, the category  leader Cadbury India had to find ways and means to help people get into the habit of eating chocolates. This way market share for its products especially the flagship Dairy Milk will only go up. And then came this ad in which post men of the area find out that even though it is the occasion of Diwali but there are no celebrations going on. They play a trick and post the letters to different addresses intentionally and then people after opening the letters get to know of plans of different families and then come out of homes to share these happy moments with others. This way  they start celebrating and start giving chocolates to each other to celebrate this occasion. Then came the ad showing brother giving his sister a packet of  chocolates on the occassion of Raksha Bandhan in return for her tieing up rakhi, as this is a tradition in India on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.   After this came the ad for Cadbury’s dairy Milk silk chocolate range in   which in the ads it is shown that people are willing to give even the important things in their life a miss to have a bite of this rich and full of  taste Chocolate.  And to top it all the latest from the box of Cadbury’s has come an ad now    with the campaign name “Shubh Aaarambh”, as in India there is a

tradition to have something sweet before beginning something good and pious. In the first ad of this series a boy is shown asking a girl to give her a bite of her chocolate as her mother has said that to begin something good one must start by having something sweet, and after getting the   bite tells her that the good thing was that he wanted to drop the girl home. Then there have been other ads under the same campaign name. These ads as usual have been all very wonderfully crafted to touch the emotions of Indian consumers in each and eveyr aspect of their life. This journey through the commercials of dairy milk by Cadbury’s had even made me very nostalgic as after going through all these commercials it always reminded me that I am going through something that I can attach to as a Indian consumer, and all these moments have happened in my life. This shows that Cadbury’s had been very successful till now in its attempt to grow the market for chocolates from being   believed to be a product used for pampering or rewarding childs to a product that can be consumed in place of mithai’s on the various festivals like Diwali, rakshabandhan etc. by both the children and the adults. The continuous repositioning of Cadbury’s dairy milk brand of  chocolates has been done so successfully by Cadbury’s that even the competitor’s will be envious of their success but in a respectable manner.  And I am waiting for the next master stroke to come from the hosue of  Cadbury’s to come and hit the market with same intensity and strength as their past campaigns. Till then let’s savour the moments with a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. By keeping the price points low, penetration has improved, even as it eyes the rural markets, which are under-penetrated at just 10%