MAM
Bhujia, extrudes and the festive season: Bikano’s go-to-market strategy for H2
Mumbai: The second half of 2021 began on a bustling note for packaged snacks brand Bikano. The Company has launched two new snack ranges – a tea-time maida-based snack range and an extrude range under sub-brand Fatax, a new campaign for its star product – Bhujia, and the festive blitz focusing on sweets. The launches are part of Bikano’s well-thought-out strategy for the rest of the year even as the Delhi-based FMCG firm sets out to achieve its larger goals of establishing itself as the Bhujia specialist and market leader, developing the extrudes category and driving volumes for sweets with festive offerings.
Bikanervala Foods, head of marketing, Dawinder Pal takes us through these developments and their strategic importance for the Company in the light of trends, that emerged out of the pandemic year. When Pal joined Bikano from Bonn Group of Industries in October 2019, little did he know that in addition to transitioning from leading a premium western snacks category to heading marketing function for a traditional snacks brand, he will also have to deal with another unexpected industry-wide transformation, just six months down the line. Fortunately, the change was largely positive for him as well as Bikano.
Taste and flavours reign supreme
There’s no denying the emergence of health and hygiene consciousness as the most important trends out of 2020. From sanitisers to ‘virus-resistant’ clothing lines, brands across categories grabbed the opportunity to come up with new offerings. Bikano also introduced a range of diet namkeen mixtures and multigrain chips. However, with the setting in of post-covid rationalisation, it became clear that while snacking had definitely embraced hygiene, thus providing an advantage to packaged foods brands, the wave of health-consciousness was short-lived.
“Even though there’s more awareness and talk of healthy-snacking, the quantum of it is quite low. When it comes to snacks, people are more glued to the taste; there’s still an unwillingness to compromise on it,” says Pal.
With renewed confidence, Bikano decided to go full throttle on traditional tastes and flavours, delivered with the hygiene advantage of packaged foods. Bhujia emerged as the obvious choice to lead the Indian snacks category. The humble snack contributes a whopping 35 per cent to Bikano’s namkeen category sales. “We are targeting Rs 200 cr in revenues from Bhujia (Aloo and Bikaneri) in the next two quarters,” says Pal.
The namkeen and snacks market in India is valued at about Rs 35,000 crore, with Bhujia and Sev enjoying a 25 per cent share. Currently, the second-biggest player, Bikano wants to become the market leader in Bhujias. To this effect, the brand recently launched a campaign – ‘Hum Se Behtar Bhujia Ko Jaane Kaun’ – positioning itself as the “Bhujia specialist”.
Bikano’s new tea-time range of refined wheat flour (maida)-based snacks, launched in July is further expected to provide it an edge over the competition. Consisting of seven products – Bhakar Badi, Tikoni Mathi, Gol Mathi, Matar Para, Methi Mathi, Mini Samosa and Chai Puri – the range is primarily targeted at the northern markets.
Unlike traditional Indian snacks where it is the second biggest player, Bikano’s foothold in the western category which includes extrudes, wafers and bridges are not as strong. Pal tells us that since the time he joined, efforts to capture the western snacks market have picked up significantly. With a minimal presence in wafers and bridges ensured, the brand decided to aggressively pursue the high-volume, high-growth extrudes category which targets kids.
In July, Bikano introduced a revamped extrudes range consisting of Ringz, Puffees, Cheese Balls, Pasta Crunch and Jungle Safari for children aged three to ten years. The objective was to augment presence in the 16000cr western snacks market, within which, extrudes (6000cr) is the fastest-growing sub-category at 23-25 per cent YoY.
During the launch, Bikano, director Manish Aggarwal had stated that the new range is expected to give the Company a sales surge of up to Rs 15 crore in this fiscal.
Another top gainer of 2020 for Bikano was the sweets category. Explaining the phenomenon, Pal states, “While our snacks TG remained unaffected, as consumer behaviour shifted towards hygiene, we felt the change – a positive one – most prominently in the sweets category, with volumes doubling in the last two years. That’s also when festive became an important part of our portfolio and yearly plans.”
Last festive season, the brand achieved 40 per cent growth over the previous year. It has the same target for this year.
Overall, the Company is eyeing 125cr in revenues from global markets and 1250cr from domestic market in this financial year.
Changing Media Needs
Bikano’s media strategy has been a combination of ATL and BTL, with print (newspapers and magazines), tactical outdoor, BTL activations, PoS branding and digital dominating the mix along with some TV. The brand has collaborated with Chhota Bheem for the launch of its Fatax extrudes range. As its builds the kids-oriented extrudes category, more such associations can be expected to increase the quantum of advertising on TV.
Within digital, Bikano prioritises social media. “We are using the modern social media platforms to build preference for our traditional products among millennials who are more inclined towards western snacks,” Pal remarks.
Pal has deployed the OTT medium significantly for the brand’s advertising needs in the US and Canada. Commenting on the rather muted presence on Indian OTT platforms, he notes, “OTT brands in the US offer clear audience segmentation, for instance, the Willow TV app is dedicated exclusively to Cricket. The phenomenon is yet to happen in the Indian OTT space, where there’s no evident differentiation, but we do plan to explore it in the coming year.”
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
