Kingfisher wants to be the recognized leader in their target markets.

Currently,

Kingfisher is the largest selling beer brand in India with market share of over 36%. It wants

to recognize the value of human assets and the preferred employer wherever they operate. It

also wants to be the partner of choice for customers and suppliers.

Kingfisher promises to use good quality raw materials to maintain quality standards.

It wants to have consistency of product quality to be high. It wants their products to always

taste fresh due to good quality and well developed distribution system. It also wants hangover

due to heavy consumption to be mild.

Kingfisher wants to provide competitive and aggressive pricing compare to its

competitors without compromising its quality. Kingfisher wants to provide its customers

unique experience with its products. Kingfisher Strong, India's largest selling beer,

symbolizes the values of strength, style, youthfulness and fun. In essence, it is symbol of

modern India. Kingfisher Premium, is associated with some of the best music, style, food and

sporting events and offers promise of 'The King of Good Times'.

Q2. What brand elements are the most useful for differentiating brand Kingfisher from

competing brands?

There are several brand elements:

1. Brand Name

2. Logo

3. Tagline

4. Character

5. Jingle

6. Packaging

Brand Name: Kingfisher

The most useful brand elements for Kingfisher that differentiates itself from its

competitors and helps in building brand equity are Tagline and its Jingle.
Jingle: “ola la la o lae o, o la lala le o”

Logo and Tagline: Visual brand elements play a critical role in building equity, especially in

terms of brand awareness. Logos are visual interpretation of the brand promise that it will be

possible to develop highly memorable, easily identifiable, and visual brand signals that cause

consumers to build associations between the brand itself and its chosen position. Logos are

visual symbols providing two necessary functions for brands: identification and

differentiation.

Tagline: Kingfisher- King of Good times

The target audience of Kingfisher beers is clearly aimed at young, wealthy males as

the website signifies youth in swimsuit calendars, a model search. They also differentiated

their product through marketing their product by associating the brand with major sporting

events like IPL, WI cricket team during 1996 WC, Formula One, soccer and football teams.

These branding are done to attract their target group (Youth segment) under focus strategy.

These helped in developing brand associations which sends across a sense of excitement and

thrill. The brand is an epitome of energy, youthfulness, zest and independence mixed with a

touch of professionalism. The brand has a life of its own. The brand has maintained

international quality, but made sure that it is within the reach of the Indian consumer.

Brand Logo:

Q3. Which aspects of product differentiation are the most valuable in setting the brand

apart from its competitors?

As all the liquor brands engage in surrogate marketing, it has been kingfisher which

has always ruled the channels of communication with its “Branding”. From its “ola la la o

lae o, o la lala le o” jingle to its famous ads by IPL cricketers, Kingfisher calendar and

social media marketing, it has a very high brand visibility compared to its competitors.

Product differentiation: The company offers a wide portfolio of beers in the low, medium
and premium price bands. It also benefited from launching more premium products towards

the end of the review period, such as Kingfisher Ultra Max. This is a stronger variant of

Kingfisher Ultra and benefits from using premium imported pilsen malts and a slow-brewing

and maturing process. The brand also features premium packaging with black and gold

labels, glass bottles and a ring-pull closure. The company meanwhile also relaunched

Kingfisher Ultra in new packaging with a white and gold label. These new packaging and

relaunching played a crucial role in retaining its customers. The brand elements and the

associations along with the product helps in differentiating itself among the competition.

They are sold in all channels of distribution like Restaurants, Hypermarkets, Grocery

retailers, Independent small grocers, Drink/Tobacco specialists and other Non-Grocery

Alcoholic drinks specialists.

Among the competitors, Kingfisher has the highest number of SKUs which satisfies

their respective TG, which has helped in retaining the market share. Also, Kingfisher, in 2012

introduced Heineken, which now holds a share of 42% in UB group, to fight out against

foreign rivals.

The strategy followed by Kingfisher is differentiation (Porter’s Generic Strategy) in

the marketing mix. They differentiated their product by earning category membership in all

the three categories: Premium, Mild & Strong.

Q4. How does Kingfisher use packaging and labelling to support its brand image and

help its channel partners sell the product more effectively?

The new vibrant look of Kingfisher Beer

Kingfisher Beer has created a unique identity with its logo of a flying kingfisher and

catchy anthem and tag line. Recently, London based branding agency Butcher & Gundersen
have developed a new Marketing campaign for the brand introducing a vibrant new look &

feel, inculcating the colours of India to articulate their prominence and distinctiveness.

The new design features an embossed bottle which gives it a more premium touch and

a simplified label to highlight its status as India’s number one beer brand. It is also hoping

that the new packaging will help the foreign customers feel they are having an authentic

Indian experience regardless of where they are having it.

Here, they’ve tried to bring in a real sense of authenticity to its consumers and have

them fully absorbed into the Indian culture. The audacious pattern now incorporated into

retail and trade packaging, as well as digital and social media space, takes its inspiration from

the rich coloured adornment painted on to elephants during Indian festivals.

Kingfisher also intends to create strategic messaging to reinforce the origin of the

genuine Indian beer, with a tagline that transfers the cultural heritage that consumers would

appreciate and resonate with. Researching the Indian Market and the traditions of India

Butcher & Gundersen had defined Kingfisher as the authentic Indian beer with the tag line

‘The Real Taste of India’, which was reinforced by theme messaging - ‘Boss of Bangalore’,

‘Dominant in Delhi’, ‘King of Kolkata’ - to underpin the genuine Indian legacy.

Kingfisher aims to give its customers the true feel of India. In the words of marketing

manager of Kingfisher Beer Europe, John Price, the company is very much excited about the

new packaging and he believes that, the new look and feel of the product instantly transport

you back to a beautiful beach in Goa.

Q5. What are the current pricing objectives of the brand and what price adaptations

(such as discount allowances and promotional pricing) does the brand include?

Beer market in India has been highly competitive and a fast-growing industry. It has

grown by 6% to 22.3 million hl (or to 286 million cases) in the previous financial year 2014-

15 (latest data not available). Kingfisher being a strong player in the beer industry accounts

for 55% market share of sales by volume. It currently markets 6 beer variants (mentioned in

table below) each in 4 packages- 650ml bottle, 330ml pint, 500ml can & 330ml slim can
under the Kingfisher umbrella. They have priced their products aggressively with respect to

its competitors without compromising with its quality & live up to their promise of 'The King

of Good Times'.

Kingfisher Ultra & Ultra Maxx products have been strategically priced to carve out a

niche for themselves in the “super premium” mild beer segment.

Strict Govt. regulations on Pricing & taxation structures (varying State wise) have

handicapped strategic pricing options. Unlike other consumer product categories, liquor

companies do not enjoy the advantage of correcting product prices based on raw material

prices, media inflation, new launches, probable re-launches and competitive pressure. Liquor

companies can change prices once a year but are not permitted to alter these in the course of

the year, irrespective of changes in raw material prices.

The sector also faces progressive taxation, which dissuades price hikes, as it attracts

higher taxes. Further, miss-pricing in the case of liquor companies’ products cannot be

covered by offering freebies or by managing trade margins and discounts. A few companies

are overcoming the price hike issue by using a premiumization strategy to pass on the volatile

prices of molasses and glass, thereby improving realizations. As consumers are upgrading

from country liquor to Indian made foreign liquor and from regular to premium alcohol,

brands with premiumization strategies will continue to do well. Hence, Kingfisher have been

competing solely on improving margins by controlling costs through state of the art brewing

facilities.

Adding to this agony, in some states even the distribution channel is completely

controlled by the State Government. Ban on liquor advertisements have limited product line

fillings, line stretching & brand promotional activities.

Competitors of Kingfisher: Historically strong entry barriers in foreign investments

(until 2006) had assisted local liquor brands in maintaining their strong market position.

However, the dynamics of trade are changing in recent times, entry of Global players like
Heineken, Carlsberg and AB InBev have posed stiff competition to Kingfisher forcing it to

operate on thin margins.

The industry has witnessed drastic shifts towards strong beer due to change in

customer preferences. These global players have launched tailored specific products such as

Turbo Strong, Carlsberg Elephant, Budweiser Magnum priced at par or higher than

Kingfisher’s premium products slowly eroding away Kingfisher’s niche market space.

Q6. How does the pricing strategy of the brand differ from its competitors?

In both mild and strong beer segment Kingfisher used Competitive pricing strategy.

The price range for a 650ml beer bottle lies between Rs 65-100 and for 330ml bottle the price

range lies between Rs 35-65 depending upon the stage.