Godrej Pillsbury kicks off innovative marketing exercise  ( October '11,2001, FE)

Godrej Pillsbury is kicking off an experiential marketing initiative by sampling its entire range of Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix (both veg and the ones with egg) with consumers in about 35,000 high activity points in Mumbai. The company has also included Semiya Upma (another product which was recently launched) in this sampling exercise. This initiative will be extended to other towns such as Delhi, depending on the consumer response in Mumbai.

“The aim is to build the franchise. Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix is a new kind of product for the Indian consumer and it is important for us to keep triggering repurchases through media activity,” says Ms Gayatri Yadav, director (marketing), Godrej Pillsbury.

In order to promote the vegetarian Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix, print ads created by Leo Burnett have been released, wherein the word “NO” (with the letter ‘O’ highlighted in the form of an egg) has been built as a visual icon in a green coloured background, signifying it is eggless and thus vegetarian.

Since the launch of Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix, a product developed for the Indian market, it has garnered a good response at the marketplace. In the first two months of its launch, the Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix had garnered sales of Rs 1 crore and volumes of about 7,500 cases. But later in the summer months of April, May and June, sales started sagging. The company realised that there was a need to trigger consumer repurchases through continuous reminders in the form of advertising and various unconventional marketing initiatives.

“We want the consumer to get programmed to this product like they are programmed to having tea or biscuits. The programming will enable better product repeats,” says Ms Yadav.

“We are also trying to break the seasonal inhibitions to the sales offtake for the Cooker Cake Mix through these activities. This can happen if the programming is done,” says Ms Yadav.

The company, which also makes Pillsbury Chakki Fresh Atta and Semiya, will demonstrate the Cooker Cake Mix to various Mahila Mandals in order to touch-base with the target audience. Further, in a bid to invoke purchase demands within a household, the company plans to connect with children through various initiatives which involve the Dough Boy, the global Pillsbury icon. This will be a part of the company’s second generation marketing initiatives.

On a long-term planning, since Pillsbury has the first-mover advantage in this category, it hopes to lead the market as and when it succeeds in making it a part of the everyday life of the consumer, such as biscuits and namkeens.

The market for steaming instant mixes, which also includes Indian sweets like gulab jamuns, etc, is said to be of the order of Rs 100 crore. However, Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix has created a new category of its kind, with the product empowering the housewife to make a cake on her own in a pressure cooker—which, unlike the oven, has penetrated most households in India.

The product innovation for Cooker Cake Mix bears its roots in the finding that as against in western countries where baking is a day-to-day task, the eastern culture is more of the steaming types when it comes to cooking.

Baking cake mixes of Pillsbury in India cater to just about three per cent of the urban Indian households, and is thus a niche product. The new innovation wherein the Indian household can steam a cake aims at targeting the large middle class population and is aimed at driving volumes.

Pricing has been maintained strictly in the affordable range of Rs 25 per pack of 300 gm cake (in cooked form) of Pillsbury Cooker Cake Mix and Rs 29 for the vegetarian variety. Pillsbury also imports its oven-cake mix packs priced at Rs 55.

“The Cooker Cake Mix has garnered sales ten times that of the oven-cake mix, since its launch a year back,” claims Ms Yadav, without revealing the exact figures. The company hopes that the egg-less vegetarian packs will receive an even better response.

Meanwhile, the parent company Selviac Nederland BV (Pillsbury) is close to formally buying out the Indian joint venture partner, the Godrej group’s 49 per cent stake in the company. However, no comments are available on this from either side.