question hour

Building Brand Biscuit

The biscuit market is witnessing big change. Is this recent?

New Delhi

Mohit, not so recent really. There sure is a lot of action in this market. Personally, I have been swimming in this market for the past 16 years. A lot has happened. The primary change is in the mindset of the marketer.

Every player, big or small, has invested in quality and capacity. Players have consciously looked at raising value. In the bargain, the humble glucose biscuit has given way to more and more exciting variants of sweet, salty, mixed, cream and chocolate-embedded. Value addition is the name of the game. Branding is acute in this space. Occupying the high ground of brand differentiation is the name of the game. Brands such as Parle, Britannia, ITC Foods and a host of smaller players have done an excellent job adding value.

The defining moment for most players is when they are able to elicit better and better margins from the very same homes they have been selling biscuits to for the past two decades.

Brands and businesses seem to go on and on. Today it is all about the startup. What’s the secret behind it all?

Bengaluru

Malathi, apt question from someone sitting in the startup capital of India! And for all I know, you must be an active participant of the startup movement you mention.

Businesses have a habit of morphing in their avatars to stay relevant. Within our own lifetime we have seen brick-and-mortar enterprises pave the way for dotcom businesses. Those then led to the online business, and now we have the app business capturing everyone’s imagination.

Businesses will continue changing themselves to suit needs. Brands will be spun out of every such business enterprise. Take, for instance, the cab business. In the beginning you had to call a cab from a cab operator. This led to the hail-on-the-road cab. And now we have the cab aggregators app. In the future we might as well have a driverless cab that you command with just the thought of wanting a cab, thanks to the savvy marriage of iOT and driverless car tech.

Brands are wherever there is money and wherever there are people. People are the consumers and money is the prime currency for now. Expect a lot of excitement in both spaces. If you are the one thinking ahead of the curve, you will make those early eyeballs and bucks for sure.

Harish Bijoor is a brand strategy expert and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Send your queries to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in