Frooti - Repositioning

On 15th March 2015, there was a big news in all leading business newspaper that Parle Agro is going to
unleash a 100 crore marketing campaign for Indias top mango Drink, Frooti. In the life span of Frooti
Brand of 30 years, the company has radically changed its logo and design. The company wants to change
the positioning of Frooti brand from its sweet and child centric image to give it bold and contemporary
look. For this purpose, company hired the service of London Based design firm Pentagram for designing
and New York based Sagmeister & Walsh for the campaign for new Frooti.
 Company
Introduction

Parle Agro, today, is a '2,500 Cr organization' known much for diversification into the Foods sector as
they are for leadership in the Beverages sector. Prakash Chauhan is a chairman & MD, Schauna Chauhan
is a CEO, Alisha Chauhan is director and Nadia Chauhan is joint managing director and Chief marketing
officer. Company operates under four business verticals:

Beverages (Fruit drinks, Nectars, Sparkling drinks and carbonated soft drink),

Packaged Drinking Water,

Foods and

PET Performs bottles and containers

Each of these verticals operates as independent entities. Under the penetration strategy, they have also set
up an exclusive division for beverages in Returnable Glass Bottles (RGB) format. As part of
infrastructure, company has 76 manufacturing facilities in India and overseas. For catering more than 6
lakhs outlet in the India only, company have 3500 distributers.

Business Statement:

"We are in the business of refreshing India with our products, refreshing the market with new categories
and refreshing ourselves through innovation."

Vision:

"To be the leaders in business. We will stand apart from the competition by being the first in the market
to innovate."

Mission:
"We will be the leaders in our business by - maintaining high quality, introducing new and innovative
products, reaching every part of India, remaining customer-centric, constantly upgrading our knowledge
and skills."

Background note

The original Parle Company was split into three separate companies owned by the different factions of the
original Chauhan family.

o Parle Products, led by Vijay, Sharad and Anup Chauhan (owner of the brands Parle-G, Melody,
Mango Bite, Poppins, Kismi Toffee Bar, Monaco and KrackJack)

o Parle Agro, led by Prakash Chauhan and his daughters Schauna, Alisha and Nadia (owner of the
brands such as Frooti and Appy)

o Parle Bisleri, led by Ramesh Chauhan

Parle Agro commenced operations in 1984. It started with beverages, and later diversified into bottled
water (1993), plastic packaging (1996) and confectionary (2007). Frooti, the first product rolled out of
Parle Agro in 1985, became the largest selling mango drink in India.

Parle Agro started their operation in1959 as Baroda bottling plant for carbonated beverages .in

1985 company launched Indias first fruit based drink Frooti in Tetra pack. That time Parle Agro becomes
the first company to launch Indias first beverage in Tetra Pack by enhancing the value
addition for customer so that they can walk away from the shop with a drink in hand. Frooti was launched
as square pouch under the trademark of Tetra pack at the time when multinational players like Coca cola
and PepsiCo were missing from action.

In 1986, company launched India's first Apple Nectar Appy

Company had sold its popular and iconic soft drink brands namely Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot and
Citra, to Coca-Cola in 1993 and also signed a non-compete agreement for ten years. Then they entered the
Packaged Drinking Water market with the launch of Bailley in1993.As a strategy of backward integration
company started preform (PET) division in 1996.

In 2005, company launched India's first sparkling Apple drink - Appy Fizz in a champagne shaped PET
bottle. Company diversified into the snack food category with the launch of Hippo, in 2009.the company
launched India's first spice based soda 2012.Latest beverage brands - Cafe Cuba, the carbonated coffee
flavoured soft drink and Frio, a range of deliciously flavoured areated drinks, have Marked Parle Agro's
re-entry into Carbonated Soft Drink market in 2013.

Frooti Facts

Frooti contributes around 63 per cent to of Rs 2,500 crore turnover of Parle Agro 2013-14. Presently
mango non-fizzy soft drink market in India has value of the Rs 5,580-crore and Frooti has 35% share in it.
Mango non-fizzy soft drink market contributes to 93 per cent of total non-fizzy soft drink market. The
growth rate of Frooti is 25 per cent while the growth of mango non-fizzy soft drink segment in total non-
fizzy soft drink market is 11 per cent.

POSITIONNING- REPOSITIONING

Frooti has become generic to the fruit drink category like All Out in mosquito repellent liquids, Colgate in
toothpaste category and Surf in washing detergent powder. Marketing consultant Harish Bijnoor said that
this is strength and weakness also for brand as the brand has to manage swiftly and carefully.Frooti is
available in various formats like:

o 90ml Triangular Tetra Pack (TCA),

o 160ml and 200ml Tetra Packs,
o 250ml, 400ml, 500ml, 600ml, 1.2 ltr and 2 ltr PET,
o 200ml RGB
o 250ml Bottle Pack.
Frooti is also exported to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates,
Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Maldives, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Mozambique, Ghana,
Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Japan, Ireland, etc.

Over the years the brand has experienced a series of repositioning strategies like from the original tagline
"Mango Frooti, Fresh and Juicy" to "Juice Up your Life". Eventually, the original tagline- "Mango Frooti,
Fresh and Juicy" was reinstalled. The present ad campaigns focus on reaffirming Frooti's leading position
across India in a confident manner.

Frooti didn't have a brand ambassador until 2013. Frooti was the last in the race to join the celeb-band
wagon. The other players in the mango beverage space already have their ambassadors: Maaza features
the pranks of Imran Khan and Parineeti Chopra while Slice has Katrina Kaif 's sensuous Aam Sutra
moves.

Currently Bollywood 'king' Shah Rukh Khan endorses Frooti. He has shot a TV commercial for the brand
with children, which had Twitter tagline "#SRKLovesFrooti". The advertisement promotes Pet bottles in
the ad rather than a Tetra pack which they used to normally show in all their ads till now.

Along with the brand film, the marketing plan includes outdoors, BTL, mall activation, visibility at retail
outlets (POP) and strong digital presence. Interestingly the first leg of this campaign was launched on the
social media and as per Kurup in less than a week, its total timeline deliveries amounted to 52 million. It
managed to garner over 8 million Twitter handles and a whopping count of 80,000 tweets. Frooti's
YouTube channel views increased by 2.5 million and subscribers increased by 600%.The brand has spent
40% more on its marketing this year.

Till 2014, all the creative advertising work was done by advertising agency Creativeland Asia (CLA)
owned by Raj Kurup a husband of chief marketing officer Nadia Chauhan but in Jan 2015 company end
its nine-year alliance with CLA. Although this break would result in 18-19% loss of revenues for CLA.
Parle Agro has now decided to work with a few international and domestic agencies on a project basis.
That why the company hired the service of with Pentagram
(London) and another with Sagmeister & Walsh ( New York) because they wanted someone without a
history of Frooti and notions about restricting the brand to a certain band of consumers. The company said
that the primary reason for choosing an international agency was to ensure a fresh and objective approach
to brand Frooti. Chauhan said the process of choosing a new logo and design lasted over 10 months. The
agency could change everything about the brand except its name. According to Nadia Chauhan, the new
logo and packaging should be able to contribute about 50% to the brands growth. According to Alok
Nanda, founder and chief executive officer of Alok Nanda & Co., a Mumbai-based brand and
communications consultancy, this change resonates well for the brand. According to him, its a nice
reflection of the brand and a much needed change that helps talk to the young and new consumer. He also
added that intensity of baggage a brand leaves behind will get decided by the degree of disconnect with
the current consumer and the degree of opportunity in repositioning.

The company will retain the color of the pack. They have changed everything from the new font, pack,
even taste, and advertising also. According to Nadia, marginal change won't do the job. The new identity
is inspired by the journey of the Totapuri mango, with the new logotype taken from the stencil style
lettering used in the crates that deliver the mangoes in Mumbai's Crawford Market. Nadia Chauhan said
that the clear business objective is to get a 50 per cent growth in sales purely due to change package
design, even before advertising starts. Company also experienced the same with Appy Fizz, that even
with zero advertising.

For the mainstream campaign, Jessica Walsh, partner at Sagmeister & Walsh and creative director of the
campaign choose to do stop motion style animation for the TVC which had to be different from what
Frooti had done before and what its competition does now. They created a miniature world using tiny-
scaled models of vehicles, people and plant life. Only the Frooti packaging and mangoes were kept in
real-life scale to let them be the hero of the shots. Music for the ad is given by the composer Amit Trivedi
and lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya. Brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan will continue to be a part of the
campaign. Sagmeister & Walsh will also use games and other digital media strategies for promotion.

Nadia Chauhan also claimed that company is doing the repositioning at right time as we are not even in
the midst of the main business season nor is our mainstream campaign out, yet and neither have trade
discounts kicked in yet.
Expert Comments
Mindshift Attractive Reports:
Brand received flurry of reaction on Twitter (94.1% conversation)

Majority of conversation are neutral: 54.2%

Enquiring about when the change was made.
44.3% expressed their dislike for the new logo.
Relate the logo to censored stamp, army logo or reject stamp.
Might go well if backed with communication of storyline.

Anand Halve, Brand Consultant, Cholorophyll

Frooti has a fundamental problem.
Still a very strong kids association with brand.
Todays 25year old still remembers as a childhood drink in tetra pack.

But brand still stayed with metaphor of a child that bringing out the child in you.

No much changed in proposition for Frooti.

Lilliputian men hauling oversized Frooti bottles leave the audience baffled.

From asking "Why grow up" (which was one of its intermediate slogans), Frooti now wants to grow up
and fast.