First phase submission

Theme: Category branding (Umbrella branding) Topic: Category branding in India with reference to Maggi

Submitted to

Prof. (Dr.) Avinash Kapoor

Submitted by

12P193 12P194 12P199 12P217 12P236

Bhaskar Rawat Chandrachuda Sharma Y Girish Chandra Joshi Naman Sharma Sameera V

13B0C07 Fabrizio Delfrati

Theme: Category branding (Umbrella branding) Topic: Category branding in India with reference to Maggi

Introduction
Umbrella branding When companies use same brand name to sell different products then it is called umbrella branding or category branding. Brand manufacturers always try to leverage on their strongly build brands either by cross promoting or by cross selling different product categories under an umbrella brand. Umbrella branding helps firms with strong brands to successfully introduce new products by convincing consumers that new and existing products are of similar quality Through umbrella branding companies are minimizing their costs of creating a new brand. Now a days it has become a standard business practice. Consumers make inferences from the characteristics of one product to the characteristics of another product under the same umbrella brand. Whenever a proper information is missing about a new product extended by an umbrella brand, strongly build umbrella brand will always help consumers in decision making about products extended by an umbrella brand. All products under the umbrella brand will help in building the reputation of umbrella brand. Through brand extensions, brand managers are reducing their risk in introducing new product. Firms can control their branding decisions on qualities, umbrella branding can convey information to consumers even in the absence of any technological quality correlation. First, the umbrella branding decision itself may influence consumers beliefs about qualities; umbrella branding has signalling effects in this case. Second, umbrella branding leads to feedback effects whenever consumers believe that the qualities of the included products are correlated. In the case of positive quality correlation, the success (failure) of an umbrella branded product has a positive (negative) feedback effect on consumers belief about the quality of the other product sold under the same brand Nestle India Limited created a new food category, noodles in the Indian packaged food market. It leveraged on its first mover advantage, Nestle successfully

managed to be a market leader in noodles category. Nestle extended the Maggi brand to a variety of food products like sauces, soups, ketchups, etc. These product extensions were not able to lure customers as noodles. Purpose and scope of the study This project looks at the various stages in the Maggi Noodles product life cycle in India. It also includes the various measures taken by Nestle to keep Maggi brand stay afresh in the minds of Indian consumers. This project also includes study about the various extensions and tries to analyse the reasons behind the success of sauces and ketchups category, among all other product extensions. Objectives of the study 1. To understand the issues faced by Nestle in sustaining the image Maggi as brand 2. To study the issues faced by Maggi in brand extensions 3. To study the strategies adopted by Maggi in repositioning

Significance of the study Importance of this study lies in the fact that brand extension can have a positive or negative feedback effect on the core brand at stake. This study will help the readers in understanding the effect of parents brand equity on the evaluation of the new product launched under an umbrella name. It is expected to provide insights about what associations are transferred from the parent brand to the new product and what strategy should be adopted to achieve a successful extension. Maggi provides an interesting example as the new products launched under the umbrella brand Maggi have met with mixed results. The study of these failures and successes can provide the readers with knowledge about the factors influencing the prospects of brand extensions.

Practically, results of the current study aids brand managers decision making processes as to how parent brand equity may have an impact on their decisions to

determine whether a brand extension strategy is appropriate. Furthermore, the current study provides information regarding the effect of brand extension on the core brand concept and parent brand equity. More specifically, the study offers additional information regarding the impact of the types of extension (horizontal versus vertical) on the core brand concept and parent brand equity The study extends the development of the stream of literature on the relationships between brand extensions, brand concept and brand equity of Maggi.