Case Challenge

BINGO! MAD ANGLES

August 7, 2013

Instructions:
Registered Teams will submit a case analysis/solution document comprising no more than 5 pages of single spaced, 12point font (including illustrations and excluding TOC, Cover page). Along with the word document each team must submit a 10-slide presentation of the case analysis/solution suggested. There is no pre-determined structure to analyse the case. Participants are free to use any format which best illustrates and provides convincing arguments for their idea. Wherever necessary, the participants must make references to the sources of information and data. Case presentations will be judged based on the following criteria the originality, creativity and uniqueness of the idea will receive the highest weightage; the implementability, sustainability and scalability of the idea; its fit with ITCs vision and the manner in which it can leverage ITCs strengths; the thoroughness of research, analytics and economic logic used to defend viability and execution of the idea. Last date for submission of case solutions is 19 th August 2013. Teams must send their entries to the email ID provided for the campus. For full details please refer to the Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge Brochure available with your Campus Point of Contact or contact interrobang@itc.in. The eBrochure is also available at our Facebook page itchubnscope.

ITC Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge: Bingo! Mad Angles

BINGO! MAD ANGLES

ITC Interrobang Case Challenge 20131
Saturday, early morning, Malas home Mala cradled her throbbing head in her hands. Saturday morning meetings were the worst especially if you had spent most of the previous night trying to pacify your nine month old daughter, who, for some reason, felt the need to exercise her vocal chords every half an hour. Thursday and Friday had whizzed past in a happy haze of congratulatory messages, applause and back-slapping. For Malas Bingo! Brand team, it was the culmination of a fantastic year. Bingo! had broken new barriers in terms of market-share, brand awareness and recall. It was the year when it had grown from being a new entrant to an aggressive major player, nipping at the heels of the market leader. The past year had seen Bingo! ads win awards, Bingo! sales multiply and achieve critical mass and Bingo! distribution and penetration improve to hitherto uncharted territory. It had been a tough but rewarding year for Mala and her minions and they had come out on top, checking off their KRAs with systematic efficiency. Meetings with the Director in charge of the Foods Business followed by a special congratulatory message from the Divisional Chief Executive on Friday morning left the Bingo! team feeling like kings. Until the reminder on Malas phone that beeped on Friday afternoon, reminding her that she had a meeting with Vivek Kabra on Saturday morning. Vivek Kabra was the Marketing Director of the ITC Foods Business. He had spent hours with Mala and her team strategizing and planning campaigns, budgets, costs & on-ground execution during the course of the previous year. Saturday meetings with Vivek were dangerous, because on Saturdays, he had more time to probe and to prod, working you over, like an expert lawyer interrogating a witness. Still, Mala told herself, it cant be bad. Vivek was clapping the loudest yesterday when the Chief Executive called for a round of applause for Mala and her boys. Nothing to worry about, she told herself as she drank her third cup of coffee. Just get through this meeting and get home for a quiet weekend.

Saturday, 9: 30 AM, Vivek Kabras office, Foods Business Division, Bengaluru Vivek strode into the office. He looked strangely incomplete without his laptop or his Blackberry. Morning, Mala Shall we get started? OK Sir.. I have put together a small presentation and I have the data Mail it to me. I will respond on Monday, said Vivek, as he settled into his chair. What I have in mind for todays meeting will only take a few minutes. I think its time for a little introspection Oh my God, thought Mala, as she smiled weakly at Vivek. Mala, I went shopping with my eight year old nephew last week. We go shopping together every time he comes over for a visit. He wanted to buy some chocolates, biscuits, snacks and cola. Mala stared back at her mentor, wondering if she had really been dragged to work on a Saturday morning to discuss Viveks nephews shopping list. She pressed her throbbing temples and sipped on her fourth coffee. Please God, she prayed, make it stop. When he wanted to buy Bingo! Mad Angles, all he asked for was Triangle Chips, explained Kabra. Mala stared back at her boss, wondering where he was going with this

1This

Case is developed by and is the sole property of ITC Limited. This is for academic purposes only and is not intended to be copied or displayed or reproduced at any place outside the Campus.

ITC Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge: Bingo! Mad Angles

Dont you see it, Mala? Bingo! Mad Angles doesnt register as a unique brand with special characteristics, f lavours, packaging or communication. They register purely as a shape in the mind of the consumer. But Sir .., began Mala in protest. Before you get defensive, just pause for a moment. Think about it. Im not saying that it is wrong that consumers associate your brand with a shape. But your brand doesnt have a future if the only thing that registers in the mind of the consumer is a shape. Just imagine if someone else were to create a snack in the shape of a triangle. What would happen then? Just remember, whatever we have done so far to get to where we are now has worked really well. But we need a plan going forward. Highlighting the product is ok to begin with, but it cannot be a sustainable long-term strategy. And the same is true for all the other s ub brands in our portfolio as well, be it Bingo! Tedhe Medhe or the more recently launched Bingo! Tangles Continuing from there, he elucidated a few examples. See Mala, the famous cold drink company Frizzy has a cola brand which is about happiness, a n orange-based drink which is about Madness, a mango drink which is about temptation and a lime based drink which is about quirkiness. These brands have gone beyond the product to connect with the consumer at an emotional level. This is what makes them iconic; this is what leads to consumer bonding which competition cannot replicate even if they manage to replicate your products. This is what marketing truly is all about. Similarly, he went on to explain, look at our internal biscuits portfolio of Sunfeast where there are sub brands which stand for Temptation, others which stand for Health and yet others which are about fun. Each sub brand occupying a distinct consumer need space, each sub brand going beyond the realm of manufacturers definition of the ca tegory and entering in to the consumers definition of the category. Mala mumbled something unintelligible about doing some homework on this before responding, all the while consoling herself by imagining a hundred different ways of torturing the nephew who was the root cause of this dreadful Saturday morning meeting.

Later that day, Malas home As soon as she got home, Mala collapsed into her couch and turned on the television to watch Dhoni and his boys take on South Africa. Nothing like a good helicopter shot or two, to take your mind off your boss and his nephew, she thought. But for some reason, a small voice kept nagging her, telling her that maybe Vivek (and his nephew) were right. Maybe Bingo! Mad Angles was just a big triangle in the mind of the consumer. Maybe this was also true for the other parts of the portfolio. Maybe. She was jolted out of her reverie by the Bingo! Mad Angles ad playing on the TV screen. Mala chuckled as she watched the man in the ad flip around an equilateral triangle tryi ng to find the perfect angle for a single Mad Angle chip. The ad had done so well, registered great recall and cut through the clutter so effectively. And yet, reflected Mala as she watched it, it stressed completely on the shape of the product, reinforcing the fact that it was a triangle. Sure, it was funny and irreverent, in keeping with the Bingo! brand personality, but undeniably, it reinforced the triangular-ness of Mad Angles. Something had to be done. She texted Guru just before calling it a day. As she lied down on her bed, thoughts on how ITC had transformed itself to be an FMCG major crossed her mind. Bingo! had played an important role in this transformation. Sometime in the early 2000s at Virginia House, ITC Limited Headquarters, Kolkata Indian Consumers in the eyes of manufacturers are almost like a Bird of Gold. With an urban population growing much faster than the total population, it is expected to account for 37% of Indian population by 2025 vis--vis just a 26% in 2005. It is forecasted that Indian GDP would grow at 7.3% for the next two decades against the 6.0% growth rate that India has seen in the last two decades. This is expected to make India the 5 th largest consumer market, behind US, Japan, China & Britain.

ITC Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge: Bingo! Mad Angles

Keeping these perspectives in mind ITC diversified from being Indias leading Tobacco manufacturer into other FMCG sectors like Food and Personal Care. ITC entered the Food business in 2002 with brands like Sunfeast in biscuits (now Indias third largest brand), Aashirvaad in staples (now Indias largest Wheat Flour Brand), Minto & Candyman in confectionery (Indias largest confectionery manufacturer in the operating segment). Later in 2005 ITC successfully ventured into the wet snacking arena with Indias first Instant Pasta.

Sometime in 2005 at ITC Foods Business Division Headquarters, Bengaluru However ITC was still ignoring a $214mn category of branded packaged snacks, dominated by one major player - Frito Lays - which had a monopolistic 80% market share, and growing at a rapid 40 % CAGR. Prior to launch, the category had a huge urban skew around 85% of the volumes came from urban areas. It was also growing at around 30% (CAGR 2yrs). Despite the category being skewed towards urban India, 78% of the total snacking market even in the key metros was unbranded. However the evolution of adopting branded packaged snacks among unbranded users was also happening at a fast pace and the branded segment had increased from a mere 22% to 30% in just two years. Out of the entire gains for branded packaged snacks, 55% came from shift from unbranded to branded segment. Delving deep into the market structure showed that there were two key segments with a significant growth prospect Potato Wafers and Bridges. All of these reasons made this segment a promising one to get into for ITC, specifically the branded segment composed of Potato Wafers & Bridges.

Between 2005 & 2007 at ITC Foods Division Headquarters in Bengaluru and ITC manufacturing facility at Uttaranchal India is composed of many distinct states, almost all of them mini-countries in themselves distinct languages are spoken in each state, habits differ (almost every few miles!), taste preferences differ and as a consequence the food eaten is very different by state, and even consumer attitudes vary widely by state. Hence any product that needed to address such a large cross-section of people needed to be customized in order to offer a unique organoleptic experience to the target consumer. To add to the Product innovation complexity, consumers across age and gender are into snack consumption by habit. Snacking as a habit has existed in India over generations, be it tea time snacks (both morning and evening tea accompaniments) or mini meals which are as much huger quenchers as they are taste lures. With increasing urbanization, the consumer is far more mobile today and hence, is in the need for mini meals prior to actual dinner times. Mobility also means the need for convenience, a need that is quite well met by packaged snacks. Thus the first step for ITC in designing its new Snacks brand was to understand the category of snacking from the consumer perspective. To this end an extensive Usage & Attitudes study was instituted to gain an in-depth understanding of the varying preferences of taste & food and how these differed by region. The category team also embarked on a detailed understanding of trends from the experts perspective, the Snacks retailers across the key markets across the country. These experts would be a good source of emerging trends as well help corroborate the consumer feedback by providing critical data on actual consumption. Monday, 11 AM, Conference Room 2, Foods Business Division, Bengaluru On Monday, Mala had a meeting with Guru Jayachandran from Market Research. Guru scratched his chin pensively as Mala explained Viveks concerns. Hmmm.. I think the old fox might have a point. His hunches are invariably accurate. Let me go through some of our old consumer testing. Give me a couple of hours, Mala

ITC Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge: Bingo! Mad Angles

As she sipped her earl grey tea, Mala went through the summary of Gurus findings. Most consumers identified Bingo! as a brand with unique characteristics. The characteristics of the brand (youthful, funny, irreverent, mischievous) registered strongly with consumers. However, Mad Angles, Tedhe Medhe and Tangles registered largely as shapes. The pack design, promotion, TV commercials all seemed to reinforce the shape in the mind of the consumer. Most consumers, when asked to come up the first thing that came into mind when they were shown a Mad Angle logo was Triangle. Sir, you were absolutely right. Gurus data backs you up completely. I was just blind to what was going on. I am so sorry Vivek looked up and smiled at his protg. Sit down Mala. And relax. This happens with most successful brands. You associate a brand with some form of mnemonic initially for it to register with your consumer, for your consumer to remember your brand easily. If you arent careful, the brand becomes the mnemonic. There are examples all around you. Remember what happened to a lead telecom player? Why do you think they suddenly stopped the doggy-ads? Because people were starting to associate the brand with cute pug dog. Thats what smart brand management is about. This happens with every brand. What you did until now was exactly what was required to create and popularize a new brand. But we need to shift strategy a little. We are no longer a new brand. We are established. People know who we are. We need to adjust our thinking and create a strong identity for each of our sub-brands. Lets meet again at the end of the week and brainstorm this. Let us start by thinking about where we want our brands to be, and then we can figure out the best way of getting there Jasvindher Singh, the Divisional Chief Executive walked in. Vivek with his child like enthusiasm explained him of his new plans to take the brand forward. Jasvindher, himself a marketing professional for more than 25 years listened with keen interest. You have a point Kabs, but tread with caution he said. Jasvindher had this unique ability to look at things from multiple perspectives, and as soon as he said that everyone in the room knew that there was a bit of marketing wizardry on offer. The product truth has to bear itself out to whichever way a brand or sub brand is positioned. After all, the product experience is the key moment of truth and is at the heart of the communication experience. It is very important for the positioning to be strongly rooted in this truth. Singh concluded with a few examples of marketing failures account this. You have more to ponder Mala, said Kabra as he got up to enter in to another meeting with the Aashirvaad team.

Monday, Late Evening, Malas home Mala was back home, staring at an empty word document. The phone rang and had Mala smiling. It was Narayanan Kumar or Nari as he was affectionately called. Nari was the head of planning for Asia at Burn and Shweir, the creative agency that handled Bingo!. He brought with himself years of experience in brand management across the world and was regarded as the Brand Guru in industry circles. Naris inputs had also been critical in devising the Bingo! communication strategy thus far. Arre bhai, said Nari in a manner typical to way his conversations started always, I went through your mail, dont even th ink of doing that. Mala had debriefed Nari over her conversation with Kabra on Sunday. After all, Nari was someone she looked up to and was certain that some valuable inputs will come from him. Dekh Mala, yours is an impulse category and that too low involvement. Further all your past research has shown that variety is the spice of life in this category. In such categories the only thing you need to drive is salience. It automatically leads to purchase. He pointed out to a large confectionary brand having a portfolio straddling across bubble gums, chewing gums, chews and candies. See their communication, its only product led and they depict a variety of innovative products in a manner which suits the product best. Mala, Bingo! makes some of the best and most innovative products, please continue to show case them just like you do now. Product based communication DOES work when you have winner products. He also pointed out to the communication of a leading mobile phone and tablet manufacturer which does only product led communication.

ITC Interrobang Season 3 Case Challenge: Bingo! Mad Angles

Achcha Mala, I am boarding my flight to Beijing, need to turn off my hand set now. Just remember, Dont fix it if it aint broke concluded Nari. Hmmm......, you have a compelling point, I need to give this a thought as well responded Mala as she kept down the receiver more confused than she ever was. She tried to sleep, but the following thoughts crossed her mind 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Are we in a problem as Vivek Kabra has pointed out or is Naris opinion correct? What was her vision for each of these brands? If Kabras approach is the answer, what are the various ways to position her brands? Which is the best way and why? What in each product will render it self to be true to its positioning? What will Bingo! then stand for, what will its relationship be with the sub brands, what will it provide and take from each?

Mala needs your help.