Holistic or Sustainable Marketing

 Holistic marketing helps all the pillars of the marketing strategy standing together and most importantly keeps the business going right. Marketing strategies have been evolving over time and today various channels are used to target the diverse audience, therefore it is important that there is no conflict between the content or the channels. Marketing holistically enables marketer to consider and include all perspectives. A successful marketing requires efficient relationship marketing, internal marketing, integrated, performance marketing and marketing. There has to be reason and substance in everything when marketing is considered.

Holistic marketing by Frooti

Holistic Marketing Perspective of Frooti

Internal Marketing:

1. ·         Alignment of organizations purpose with employee behaviour.
2. ·         Motivation, empowering and reframing of employees attitude.
3. ·         Inside – out management approach
4. ·         Constant training programs for the benefit of employees.

Relationship Marketing

1. ·         Constant offers like the ‘ 5 ka 2’ offer wherein they sold 2 65ml tetra packs at Rs 5 or at Rs 2.5 each.
2. ·         The pullback strip concept
3. ·         The use of mangoticons to strike a bond with their target audience

Integrated Marketing

• ·         The juicy mango project wherein they got common people involved in their campaign.
• ·         Initially the ‘ Why Grow Up’ campaign featuring Shah Rukh Khan went up on TV commercials. This was followed with OOH activities like painting of buses, use of billboards and hoarding, wall paintings having the same theme supporting the campaign. Then we had promotions like ‘Have a Frooti with Shah Rukh’. Thus all their efforts were directed in one direction.

Societal Marketing

1. ·         Use of fresh ingredients every time.
2. ·         Suitable disposal of waste to ensure minimal pollution.
3. ·        Social Responsibility Projects taken up time to time.

Analyzing consumer markets

Product – Parle Frooti

Price – Varied across different bottles

Distribution - wholesalers, retailers, groceries

Communications - Advertising targeting the youth, hoardings, fun campaigns, on-ground activities

Other Stimuli

Economic – Affordable

Consumer Psychology

Based on Maslows hierarchy of needs, let us consider the several psychological stages a consumer goes through while purchasing Frooti.

Motivation - Frooti is consumed to quench thirst (physiological needs)

Perception - The brand perception is created by the awareness that is built by the communication strategies. Being associated with a parent company as that of Parle Agro, Frooti is perceived to be a drink of very good quality. the brand is perceived as a youth brand.

Memory – Frooti is a brand that has dominated the market for over 26 years. The tagline Fresh and Juicy is in built in the consumer mind in such a way that it accompanies the product Mango Frooti unknowingly. The tagline and the jingle remains in our heads as soon as we listen to them. Besides this, Parle as a parent company is well known for its contribution to the food and beverage industry. Due to the link with this company, it becomes easily acceptable in society.

Consumer Characteristics

Cultural – Mango for generations is considered to be the king fruit of the country. With such a strong linkage to this cultural aspect, a drink such as Frooti becomes highly acceptable. In India it is mandatory to quench our thirst with something sweet rather than only water. Serving a drink made from the king of fruits will help elevate the quality of care towards others. 

Social – Frooti has repositioned itself in order to be a drink for the youth. Having a Frooti is considered cool and youthful due to the various innovative campaigns they come up with. Frooti due to its availability in several packs can be taken along at different occasions. The idea of drinking healthy and staying fit by not having any of the colas is also a social factor in the eyes of the consumer.

Personal – The craving to indulge in something sweet and healthy is what encourages us to buy a Frooti. The sweet tasted of Frooti requires a developed taste and hence may vary from person to person.

The above then culminate and help us understand the buying decision process of the product.  

Analyzing Business and Consumer Markets

B2B Vs B2C Marketing:

B2B is very rationally oriented as compared to B2C which is more emotional as it basically targets the wants and needs of the customer.

In case of Parle Frooti it adheres to both B2B and B2C markets.

Frooti supplies stock to hoteliers and several fast food chains for a certain share of the profit obviously.

In B2C markets, it is all about the consumers. Frooti reaches more than 10 lakh retail outlets in the remotest towns through more than 1500 distributors and wholesalers directly or indirectly

A very interesting move in the world of B2B is the use of social media. More and more buyers by the hour are using this tool to search for vendors there. Though it may not create the same kind of connect for their B2B products, It is still on the up rise and is being well accepted in the segment. Very few brands in India are using social media as a B2B tool. Social media helps reach the audience in a more personalized and traditional approach. Frooti uses it social media in a very good way to keep the audience aware of the on-going campaigns and connects through consumer complaints and queries.

Branding and Brand Management

How did Frooti initially build a strong brand?

When Frooti first came to the market they believed in innovation to a great extent. It was the first brand as to come up with a tetra pack. No one has seen any such thing before. In order to increase their reach, they resorted to promoting in several other environments such as schools work places etc. You could find a Frooti easily and anywhere. The name Frooti came up due to its association of it being a fruit drink. Product advertising played a huge role in building the brand. In its initial phase there was a lot of education involved right from promoting the product, to explaining what the product really is. The knowledge branding then shifted towards increasing consumer base, and hence the Why Grow Up campaign came into the light. They came up with several campaigns and took to several means to promote the same. They covered all the aspects of the integrated marketing communications so as to reach the masses. Their branding could be seen all over the place, on hoardings on television commercials, digital platforms, transport etc. They also conducted several on ground activities.

Current brand management:

The tagline of ‘Fresh and juicy’ has created major brand recall in the minds of the consumers. So that they don’t lose this link that the consumers have, the Frooti packs currently incorporate the decades-old tagline, with only a minor change. Even the ad plays the jingle towards the end. However its current brand communication theme is based around Why Grow Up.

Frooti keeps coming up with rather innovative campaigns in order to keep its pace in the mango drink market. By roping in a celebrity as big as Sharukh Khan, Frooti has assured a good amount of interaction from all his fan followers as well.

The Frooti ads throughout the years have focussed on mango lovers. They are targeted to their consumers in a rather endearing way. If you wish to know about its brand recall, there’s just one test to put forth. Try humming the Mango Frooti tune; you will not be able to stop just there. It’s tagline goes hand in hand with the product. This is a perfect example of a brand creating an outstanding recall in the minds of the consumers.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

Segmentation, targeting and positioning together comprise a three stage process.  We first (1) determine which kinds of customers exist, then (2) select which ones we are best off trying to serve and, finally, (3) implement our segmentation by optimizing our products/services for that segment and communicating that we have made the choice to distinguish ourselves that way.

Segmentation-

With the demographic aspect Frooti's consumer section can be broadly divided into two.

The primary segment consists of children in the age group of 4-12 years. Here the consumers are the kids, however the customers are their parents who are in search of a healthy beverage alternative for their kids who they wish to keep away from colas.

The secondary segments consists of all the adults those who love fruit based drinks because they are wholesome and non-carbonated. They may also be influenced by the several on-going campaigns and endorsements. Most of their decisions are based on their individual likings. 

Targeting:

1. ·         Recreational purposes (movie halls, community sectors)
2. ·         Kids
3. ·         Lifestyle
4. ·         Sports
5. ·         Fitness
6. ·         Health
7. ·         Primary market:
8. ·         Kids
9. ·         Teens
10. ·         Youth
11. ·         Working people
12. ·         Women
13. ·         Elderly people
14. ·         Secondary market
15. ·         Travel industry (airlines, railways etc.)

Positioning:

Frooti is India's legendary and iconic mango drink. When Frooti was launched in 1985, it came in as a really contemporary and youthful mango drink. It was the first brand to introduce fruit drink in tetra packs. In the 1990's the commercials revolved around the king of fruits mango.

As Frooti entered the second decade the brand realised that they have to change perception that it was a drink just for kids. There was a need of new positioning. They had to make Frooti more relevant to the youth. The YO Frooti campaign, Digen Verma campaign and Bindass campaigns were steps in that direction. Being the market leader in fruit drinks, it is important that Frooti stands out while retaining the brand associations with mangoes. Frooti's recent campaign "why grow up" lays the foundation for long term strategy and vision of the brand. It not only highlights the brand makeover, it also stays true to its core mango value.

The change in positioning of Frooti can be seen with the example of its constant change in tagline messages throughout the years and their packaging approach.

‘Mango Frooti, Fresh n Juicy’ has remained the base tagline since the brand launch. In between, the brand has used new taglines such as:

‘Frooti - Just like that’

‘Fresh and juicy! What a beauty! Mango Frooti!’

‘Juice up your Life’

Why Grow Up?

Sales Management

Sales management is the discipline of maximizing the benefits a company and its customers receive from the efforts of its sales force.

The ‘Digen Verma' campaign generated a lot of interest amongst the consumers who were eager to know who this character is. Parle Agro did not only evoke interest via this campaign, but also helped in increasing sales to a great extent. They just spent Rs 30 million on this campaign, and the sales were up by almost 30 per cent. However even though they generated a huge amount of sales, many analysts pointed out that the campaign may have created a negative impact on the brand image and recall.

Besides this, in order to increase the sales margin in the summer of 2009, the company drew inspiration from the buzzing topic of emoticons during that time and created ‘mangoticons’ across its Frooti packages.

In order to further increase sales and keep up with competition, Frooti decides to launch glass bottle for the product.

Distribution

Frooti reaches more than 10 lakh retail outlets in the remotest towns through more than 1500 distributors and wholesalers directly or indirectly. Due to this distribution structure, Parle Agro won the beverage industry award for the best managed supply chain and the highest retail ability award in 2002.

Frooti adopts the first and second level of distribution, where in the exchange takes place with the retailers and wholesalers directly. 

Product Mix

A product mix is the set of all products and items a particular seller offers for sale, a mix of products is offered to cater to different segments. A product mix has certain divisions like width, depth, length and consistency. Width of a product mix is the number of different product lines the company has. Length of a product mix is the total number of items in the mix. Depth of the product mix is the number of variants offered by each product in the line. Consistency of the product mix is how closely related the various product lines are in the end use.

Product Mix of Parle Frooti:

Parle Frooti categorised its drink as a need satisfying product that helped quench consumer thirst. It stressed on the fact that it is a fun and healthy drink to have.

Parle products have been Indias largest manufacturer of biscuits and confectionary for almost 80 years. Parle as a company has a vast product line ranging from biscuit to sweets to beverages to snacks. It is a food and beverage company that has been a leader ever since its growth and maturity stage. The product length comprises of around 20 biscuit varieties (hide and seek, Monaco, 20-20, Parle G etc.), 12 sweet varieties (Londoncherry, Kiss me bar, Melody, Mango bite etc) and around 5 snack items.

Frooti is one of the product lines of Parle beverages. Frooti is available in 65ml and 200ml Tetra Pack, 250ml, 500ml, 1ltr, 1.5ltr PET and 200ml, 2ltr PET in selective markets. 

Pricing

Pricing policy of Frooti: the pricing of Frooti is done by keeping in mind its target audience which includes kids, teenagers, youths, adults and also for the low income consumers. Unlike its competitors like Tropicana and Real it doesn't only caters to a particular set of consumers.

Tetra Pack packaging

Quantity	Price (Rupees)
65 ml	2.50
200 ml	10.00
250 ml	12.00

PET bottle packaging

Quantity	Price (Rupees)
250 ml	10.00
500 ml	18.00
1000 ml	35.00
2000 ml	60.00

As it can be seen the prices for this quality drink are very economical. They are available over a range, thus making it very convenient for a consumer of any age to purchase.

Payment methods: direct payment by the consumer at the shop or retail store.

Promotion - Integrated Marketing Communications

Frooti is promoted through various television commercial, banners, hoardings, online etc. Due to these promotions, Frooti has an excellent brand recall. The tagline of Frooti goes hand in hand. If you have to say Mango Frooti out loud, the consumer or even the audience will immediately link it to the fresh and juicy tagline. The product seems incomplete with this tagline.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is an approach to brand communications where the different modes work together to create a seamless experience for the customer and are presented with a similar tone and style that reinforces the brand’s core message. Its goal is to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations direct marketing, online communications and social media work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation, which maximizes their cost effectiveness.

An example of this in relation to Frooti would be:

Juicy Mango Surprise Project: This particular campaign had a tremendous impact and went viral with its humorous advertisements. A hidden camera captured people’s reactions to giant sized mangoes rolling down after them. This thus tickled the funny bone of the viewers and helped change their perspective of Frooti being a fun drink.  This project called the Juicy Mango surprise can be involved in the outdoor activities involved in the IMC. There was a lot of word of mouth buzz and viral videos that were circulated. This on ground activity was conducted in 12 metros and mini metros in malls, colleges and other youth hang outs.

Promotion of a brand are divided into two parts ATL and BTL promotions

ATL (Above the line) Promotion: (Television, cinema, radio, print, and Out-of-home to promote brands or convey a specific offer)

Some of Frooti’s famous campaigns are:

Shahrukh Khan Campaign: One of the most successful TV commercials in which they resort to celebrity endorsement for the first time. What makes the ad even more enchanting is the soulful track that holds the film together.

The Digen Verma Campaign: Frooti had always been positioned as a drink for kids. After a few years of establishing their image in the market they wanted to switch sides and position themselves as a drink for the youth. The Company wanted to reposition its product and create hype around it. To do this, they introduced a mysterious character called Digen Verma. Digen Verma they said was a real life, down-to-earth person, who, like any college student likes to bunk classes, is a good sportsman and is a popular figure in the college, with whom the teenagers can actually associate themselves. The enigma called 'Digen Verma' was everywhere, in buses, film halls, colleges, cyber cafes and shopping malls. 'JUST who is Digen Verma?' That's what the nation seemed to be had been wanting to know. In the 15 days that the campaign lasted in (February 2001), Digen Verma seemed to have become the most talked about faceless name in the country.

BTL (Below The Line) Promotion:  BTL sales promotion is an immediate or delayed incentive to purchase, expressed in cash or in kind, and having short duration. It is efficient and cost-effective for targeting a limited and specific group. It uses less conventional methods.

Frooti rarely indulges in such form of promotion.

3 C's and Product Levels

The 3C's Model is a business model, which offers a strategic look at the factors needed for success. It was developed by business and corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae.

The 3C’s model points out that a strategist should focus on three key factors for success. In the construction of a business strategy, three main players must be taken into account: The Customer, The Competitors and The Company.

Product Levels:

Core Benefit: 

Customer: Thirst

The customer has the core benefit of thirst. This is what initiates the purchase of any product.

Basic Product:

Company: Provides Frooti as a beverage to satiate consumer core benefit.

Expected Product:

Customer: Healthy drink that is tasty and readily available.

Company: Huge sales and successful campaigns. Associate Frooti with the thirst requirement and come into the market at the right time.

Augmented product:

Competition: Maaza does not really add any additional benefits to its drink except the star appeal by using Katrina Kaif. Does more powerful advertising on a higher frequency. The other beverages too trying focusing on the youth thus making it a cluttered market for this target group.

Potential product:

Company: Helps create strategies and plans for future such campaigns. Search for new ways to satisfy the consumers. Target more people than only the youth. Come up with interactive and innovative packaging and campaigns.

Marketing Mix Elements

 Product:

·                 India’s first fruit drink, available in a tetra pack

·                 Made from premium mangoes - India’s king fruit.

·                 Also available in PET bottles - Durable good/ Consumer good.

·                 Contains vitamin A

·                 Comes in the NCSD category

·                 Tasty and healthy

·                 Available in different quantities.

Price:

·                 Ranges from 2.50 to 60 rupees.

·                 Sizes available based on price and requirements.

Place:

·         Highest distributed brand in fruit drink – 85% market share and easily available.

·         10 lakh retail outlets through more than 1500 distributors and retailers – directly or indirectly

·         Best managed supply chain and Highest retail availability – 2002

Promotion:

·         Parle Agro is revamping its marketing plan in order to suit the current market scenario.

·         New retailing and marketing initiatives taken each  year.

·         Digen Verma campaign which involve a mysterious character in order to gain attention.

·         Parle Agre introduced new characters called Froo and Ti on every bottle.

·         Campaigns that target the youth - Say it Sid, Sharukh Khan, Why Grow Up etc.