MAM
Bikano expands its western snacks category with three new products
Mumbai: Snacks major Bikano has announced the launch of three new products ‘Mexican Crunch’ and ‘Fun Sticks’ (two variants) to increase its market share and revenue stream in the western snacks category. Available at different price points, the new products are aimed at solidifying the brand’s presence in the western snacks market.
All three new launches will be promoted across channels like digital, retail and print media.
“The new launches provide us a means to target new markets and customers, increase market share, sell more and eventually increase our revenue streams,” stated Bikano director Manish Aggarwal. “A wide range of products portfolio also gives confidence to the retailer and provides an opportunity to infuse new energy into the channel, thus increasing sales revenue. Treatos Mexican Crunch and Chatax Fun sticks are definitely going to work as fuel for growth.”
“The new work-from-home culture post lockdowns has grown the munching habit among people. Observing these trends, we believe that the snacks market is going to get even bigger. For the initial six months, we are expecting sales revenue of Rs 25 lakhs per month and will gradually attempt to achieve Rs one crore sales per month from these three products,” he further said.
Gen-Z and the millennial population are considered a big market by FMCG companies for the snacks segment. With snacking brands focusing more on products with low-calorie count and less oil, they are able to encourage the younger generation towards healthier snacking choices, said the brand.
“Indians are experimenting, seeking variety and are open to trying new products and experiences. Businesses need to be quick to tap into the fast-growing and profitable categories. Diversifying the portfolio makes sense as it helps mitigate risk and is not necessarily a costly affair. Most product changes are consumer-led, and this is to cater to their explicit and implicit needs,” said Bikano’s head of marketing Dawinder Pal.
“In Mexican Crunch, peri-peri is the most popular flavour. Also, it is 100 per cent corn-based which gives a crunchy bite. On the other hand, the USP of Chatax Fun Stick is the taste and flavour which differentiates it from competitors. The product is very tasty and light to eat. For the Treatos Mexican Crunch we are targeting the age group of 10-30 years, while for the Chatax Fun Sticks, our target group is five years to 18 years,” added Pal.
MAM
The Merit of Madness: How AI is Changing the Game in Advertising
By Ritz Malik, founder, Ritz Media World.
MUMBAI: When it comes to growth in a competitive landscape, a businessman always has to be a firm believer in Darwinism. You either need to bring a better product, or a better price, or both to the table to get customers and scale. Without this value proposition, you remain unnoticed, and staying unnoticed is not something that a brand wants to do.
You have to do all this and also make sure that you stay cashflow positive at the same time. Otherwise, you’re at a real risk of becoming a large hollow balloon that your competitors are just waiting for to explode or implode under its own weight.
As we’ve entered the era of AI, the notion of a product’s efficacy, cost efficiency, marketability, workflow management, and logistics reliability has become increasingly relevant and prevalently impactful. None of this is background noise anymore. It is the difference between bleeding money on traditional media and actually engineering a profitable campaign.
For example, META’s AI Algorithm has finally given us the ability to measure the ‘CREATIVE’ for a business’s promotions. The best part is that we can do so organically. Content that is actually relevant to the target audience gets more views through reach. This tells us exactly how the audience is reacting before we even scale the budget. This is how we have been gifted the ability to provide merit to the madness of the creative process.
So, our process is as follows:
A set of creatives is built for social media
Their performance is closely monitored for reach and engagement.
Based on the best organic performance, we choose the creative.
Make micro adjustments to add a sales proposition and CTA (but keep it subtle)
Publish the modified creative as an ad.
There’s a lot that goes on in between, but this is the basic method for getting it right. And this is just the AI that’s being used by platforms across the world.
AI utilisation is something that has greatly made the creative process a lot easier. As an agency that thrives on coming up with ideas that are out of this world, we have made the most of leveraging AI to bring ideas to life without spending a fortune.
So, this way, the ability to create high-impact brand stories is no longer under the tyrannical gatekeeping of large budget organisations. It is now that merit solely falls on the storyteller.
Now, AI-powered content production and the AI algorithm on Social Media platforms are asking the question: Is your content compelling?. If yes, the audience will watch your content, share it, and engage with it.
And when it comes to keeping budgets down, we can surely say that it holds the capability to execute million-dollar shoots at a fraction of the cost.
For example, we recently came across a creative challenge by a major Real Estate Developer from Gurugram. They had signed a celebrity couple for their brand ambassadorship a few months ago. They were now about to launch their new project, but for some reason, they could not get their shoot done.
What we came up with was to use the likeness of this celebrity couple and place them throughout the project’s feature video. With the help of AI generation, we were able to rebuild a completely new feature video with their brand ambassadors in 2 days, and no additional physical shots were required.
Imagine being able to save 50-60 lakhs in production costs, 15-20 days in production time, and comfortably be ahead of schedule to launch the project.
This has changed the game entirely. With AI, you can now just acquire the likeness rights of celebrities, and you can just build environments and scenarios with them. The balance between creative and artificial intelligence isn’t a battle for control; it is simply the ultimate tool for survival and scale in a landscape that rewards the fastest and the smartest.
