MAM
Parle Products eyes China for next phase of growth
MUMBAI: The girl with the glucose biscuit is probably the most iconic image after the Amul butter girl in India. The Parle-G girl is a part of the Parle Products family that has been in existence since 1929, founded by the Chauhan family in Vile Parle, Mumbai. Until a few years ago, as you crossed the station, you could smell the aroma of the baked biscuits wafting through the air and immediately got transported back in time to your childhood. The now-defunct factory on the premises is a great reminder of the company’s heritage. Now, Parle is gearing up to make a bigger impact in China and is planning to build a manufacturing facility in Mexico.
In 1947, when India became independent, the company launched an ad campaign, showcasing its glucose biscuit, Parle-G, as an Indian alternative to the British biscuits. The Parle brand has since become well known in India expanding to other names such as Milano, Hide & Seek, Poppins, Kismi, and Melody.
Parle-G continues to hold 20 per cent share of the Rs 25,000 crore biscuit market by value. Since 1990, the product has managed to retain 80 per cent of the glucose biscuit market while premium biscuits are worth only Rs 5000 crore in the total biscuits market.
While biscuits have always been the anchor of the company, comprising nearly 70 per cent of its Rs 10,000 crore turnover in 2017, Parle is now seeking to enhance its confectionery portfolio that generates revenue of more than Rs 1000 crore. The company has also entered into a new category of staples in the recent past.
Parle Products category head Buddha Krishna Rao says that in the last year and half, the company has seen good growth coming back to categories like biscuits, confectionary, snacks, cakes and rusks.
While the brand’s core target has always remained women and kids, a few products have a great appeal with the younger generation. Parle has over a period of time learned to customise its content and communication that cuts the ice with the audience as the market changes.
Parle is working on being relevant in the digital space. Krishna Rao says, “We are in talks with a few production houses for brand integration on digital platform for a customised series, which will be targeted at the Parle audience. The webisode series is slated to launch in late 2018.”
Parle recently rebranded one of its quintessential products, Kismi. The product now also comes in two additional Indianised flavours of rosemilk, kulfi and rajbhog along with the traditional elaichi flavourajr. Kismi, along with Melody, was once the star product for the brand that started to lose its sheen with the entry of newer products in the market.
“Although many believe it was out of the market, it just wasn’t marketed enough. In the last four years, we have felt the need to communicate for the brand and we choose to communicate with youngsters,” Krishna Rao adds. Since the product caters to the younger generation, Parle will engage in a lot of OOH, radio, college fest and other opportunities to connect with the millennials.
Madison recently launched its 2018 outlook report for adex. The report projected that ad expenditures are likely to grow at 12 per cent this year and Krishna Rao thinks the projection is a fair expectation. Parle itself will increase the ad spends by 11-12 per cent in 2018 and the majority of the ad spend will go to the digital medium.
Known for its distribution strength, Parle Products currently reaches out to 4.5 million outlets directly and also has an indirect reach of 6 million. Kaccha Mango Bite has been the best-selling candy in terms of sheer volume for the brand. Parle Products rebranded its chocolate Lacto Bite as Londonderry in 2012, which competes directly with Perfetti Van Melle’s Alpenliebe. Parle discontinued its mint-flavoured candy, Mints, in early 2017 as it was under performing.
The company exports to various markets across the globe including the US, the UK, Europe, Africa, the UAE, South East Asia and Pakistan. It is also looking at spreading its presence in China. Among all the countries Parle exports to, majority of demand comes from Africa as it is still a developing nation and Parle products are available there at economical prices. The company also has two manufacturing units set up in Africa at Cameroon and Nigeria and is already working on setting up a new unit in Mexico. Products like Parle-G, Marie, Krack Jack are locally produced in Africa and the brand wants to predominantly target the Indian diaspora living abroad. Going forward, Parle is looking at having customised products for international markets which would result in more local authentic flavours and combinations to attract local buyers.
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MAM
Publicis Groupe India launches data-led influencer platform ‘Influential’
A new platform, a seasoned hire and an ambitious plan to bring discipline to India’s booming but chaotic creator economy.
MUMBAI: Influencer marketing in India is big, messy and, for most brands, maddeningly hard to measure. Publicis Groupe India has decided it has had enough of that and is moving to fix it.
The advertising giant has launched Influential, its global creator marketing solution, in India, pairing the rollout with the appointment of Diwaker Chandani as managing partner for Influential India. The brief is blunt: drag influencer marketing out of the spray-and-pray era and into one defined by data, accountability and results that actually show up on a balance sheet.
A fragmented market ripe for disruption
India’s influencer ecosystem has scale in abundance. What it lacks is maturity. Measurement standards are inconsistent, creator databases are riddled with duplication, and brands remain dangerously hooked on organic reach, a strategy that flatters vanity metrics while delivering uncertain commercial returns. Chandani, who brings nearly two decades of experience across digital platforms and media, puts it plainly. “The ecosystem has scale, but not maturity,” he says. “By combining data-led audience intelligence with creator ecosystems and media amplification, we aim to build a model that delivers measurable and repeatable outcomes.”
It is a diagnosis that Publicis Groupe is staking serious infrastructure on. Influential is anchored in the group’s Connected Identity system, which maps consumer profiles to enable more precise audience targeting and creator selection. Layered on top are the Captiv8 platform and Influential’s global creator network, giving brands the tools to plan, activate and measure campaigns across the full funnel, from awareness down to commerce, rather than treating each influencer post as a standalone act of faith.
The hire
Chandani is not an unfamiliar face in the industry. He has held senior roles at Meta, Zee Entertainment and the Network18 Group, working across creator partnerships and content-led media strategies. His mandate at Influential India is to integrate data, creators, media and commerce into a unified framework and to build the team and client roster to scale it.
Anupriya Acharya, chief executive of Publicis Groupe South Asia, frames the launch as a response to a market that has grown faster than its own infrastructure. “The channel has reached scale, but lacks a unified, data-led foundation,” she says. “With Influential, we are moving from a creator-first approach to a cohort-first, identity-led model powered by Connected Identity.” The integration of creators, media and commerce, she adds, will enable more precise and scalable outcomes for brands.
Why now
The timing is deliberate. Influencer marketing in India is expanding rapidly, fuelled by cheap data, a vast and young social-media audience, and brands increasingly willing to redirect budgets away from traditional media. But growth without governance has created a market where consistent returns remain elusive and accountability is largely aspirational. Publicis Groupe is betting that the industry’s next phase belongs not to whoever has the biggest roster of creators, but to whoever can prove, with hard numbers, that those creators are actually shifting product.
The old model of picking a popular face, posting a reel and hoping for the best is running out of road. Influential is Publicis Groupe India’s wager that the future belongs to the spreadsheet as much as the selfie.
