In conversation with Medianews4u.com, Krishnarao Buddha, Sr. Category Head – Marketing at Parle Products, spoke about leveraging the Parle brand, rub-off of the Parle equity on Parle-G and vice versa, consumer responses to newly launched Hide N Seek Fills, Parle-G Oats & Berries and Parle-G Kismi Cinnamon and more.
Parle forayed into cereals in September 2021 with Hide N Seek Fills. Parle-G moves into oats and adjacencies now. Tell us about the break up in the portfolio: share between biscuits and others, and the share of the world’s largest biscuit brand Parle-G.
We are essentially into the business of biscuits, confectionery, salty snacks, bakery, and in April 2021 we entered into the packaged atta. In September 2021 we got into breakfast cereals, where we had a phased launch. By February-March 2022, the segment was available nationally. The contribution of newly launched categories are relatively small, almost negligible. But, we are receiving extremely encouraging responses, especially in metros and Tier 1 towns for breakfast cereals and atta.
Coming to the contribution of various businesses, the biscuit segment leads with the lion’s share of 80 to 83 pc, roughly about 12 to 13 pc comes from confectionary business, rest comes from the salty snacks and bakery business.
Parle-G biscuits contribute almost 60 pc of our overall business.
Reportedly, Parle is in talks to acquire Polish biscuit brand dr Gerard. While that is within the space and you may not have an update on it, what are the product portfolio expansion plans Parle has?
As of now, Parle is looking at consolidating the categories we have already ventured into. We are also looking at enhancing our existing portfolio of biscuits, salty snacks, confectionery, bakery etc.
I strongly believe that there are immense opportunities in the breakfast cereals category. We need to ensure that the products are getting deeply distributed well in small towns as well.
How did the Parle- G products perform during the festive period? Do the premium products outperform?
We have received fantastic responses for all the categories and that applies to our premium gifting offering Parle Occasions as well.
During the pre-pandemic period, Parle Occasions’ uptick was to the tune of almost 25 to 30pc. During 2020 and 2021, we barely managed to clock double digit growth. This year we are back on track, and almost to the level of pre-pandemic, which is quite heartening.
Parle-G Oats & Berries and Parle-G Kismi Cinnamon launched in July 2022. Who is the TG? How do you assess the product performance thus far?
Parle-G Oats & Berries and Parle-G Kismi Cinnamon are absolutely innovative products from the stable of Parle. We are targeting consumers who are health conscious, at the same time who give importance to the taste of the foods they intake. The products are work well among that set of consumers.
Typically, you have biscuits accompanied by tea. Parle-G Kismi Cinnamon is a good accompaniment to coffee.
We are consistently receiving encouraging responses and repeated demand.
Parle largely means Parle-G to a lot of people. And maybe Hide N Seek. How does that make marketing and advertising for other brands in the folio challenging? How do you leverage the Parle-G strength?
We try not to leverage the legacy of Parle-G, but of Parle as a corporate brand. There is a lot of exchange of equity and imagery between Parle and Parle-G.
Parle-G has a huge rub-off on corporate brand Parle and vice- versa. We always leverage upon the corporate brand Parle, during advertising.
Has the Parle-G value legacy ever come in the way of premiumising the portfolio?
We did find certain challenges. Since the time we launched the division called Parle Platina, things have significantly improved. We are getting quite a positive reception from our consumers.
Tell us about the market share of Parle- G across the geographies in India. Which is the most contributing market in terms of sales for the brand?
At all India level, we lead with 82pc share and are the dominant player across geographies. The competition has been decimated and reduced to a very small market share.
If you take the entire portfolio of Parle as such, North & West contributes to 33 to 35pc of our overall business. South contributes 25pc and the rest is by East.
Parle-G has ventured into merchandise collection with a range of products including the official Parle-G Dipping Mug, Genius Diary, Genius Phone Grip, Chai-Love Coaster and Tote Bag. How did the segment perform during the festive season?
The merchandise collection is a very localised kind of initiative with a Bombay sweet shop, which gave us a fabulous review.
Sales of the products have been very good during the festive time. Also, the chatter on social media about the products was fantastic.
As of now, we are not planning to expand the product to other geographies. We are looking at consolidating our partnership there as it has fetched the brand very good responses.
Nestle has gone D2C. ITC started a while ago. Ecom is anyways a major contributor today. What is the share of online sales for Parle products? How is this evolving? How will this growth shift marketing spends online?
If we were to look at the online sales, till about the early 2020 ( pre-pandemic level), our online sales coming from e-commerce sites and other online platforms were barely 1.25pc. Now it is around 5 to 5.5pc, which is a significant increase.
Not only e-commerce, Q-commerce is also fueling the growth.
Q-commerce is shaping up extremely well for all the Parle products, these are the products where consumers have impulse buying.
Having said that, we know that there are certain players that have ventured into D2C. However, for us, we are really sure that we are not keen on D2C play at all because we have channels where we can reach consumers much more easily.
We have our conventional distribution which is extremely strong. There is apprehension about our D2C because of the ticket size. For D2C we need to have a certain value, like Rs.500, 1500 ticket size. It becomes difficult to make it a viable proposition for all consumers.
Tell us about the marketing and advertising strategy and sponsorships.
Parle has always believed in being present where our consumers are. Most of our products are targeted at women or kids. If we talk about media, Television forms a key medium as part of our ad strategy.
In the last four to five years we started focusing on digital as a platform as well, which is working well for Parle.
When we consider other areas, for example reaching rural markets, distribution-led operations work there. When we build our creatives, we are completely focused on our consumers, as to how a particular brand is relevant in the lives of our consumers. That’s us at the core of devising our communication strategies.
Whenever there is an opportunity on any medium which helps us reach mass consumers, we board that vehicle and ensure that we reach consumers at opportune times.
TV forms 82 to 83pc of Parle’s ad spends. Digital is about 10 to 12pc, other mediums like radio, print, and OOH contribute to the rest.
Parle-G had a long running relationship with Indian superhero Shaktimaan, which was broadcast on Doordarshan. Shaktimaan was sponsored by Parle-G from its first episode.
Shaktimaan was an iconic association. It has done wonders for brand Parle and Shaktimaan as well. We have had a long association with Chotta Bheem also. We are always on the lookout for any Television shows/opportunities which have great synergies and there is relevance in terms of content as well.
