Frooti
Frooti
Frooti
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.
Beverages (Fruit drinks, Nectars, Sparkling drinks and carbonated soft drink),
Foods and
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."
2.2 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)
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.
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.
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.
Shahrukh Khan SRK endorses Parle Agro Frooti
2.5 Expert Comments
Mindshift Attractive Reports
Brand received flurry of reaction on Twitter (94.1% conversation)
But brand still stayed with metaphor of a child that bringing out the child in you.
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.