Comments
After ice-creams, Amul has upped the ante in biscuits segment. The company recently launched a campaign highlighting that its butter cookies contain 25 per cent butter and not vegetable oil. In comparison, its rival butter cookie brands only have 0.3-3 per cent butter content and 20-22 per cent vegetable oil.
In its print and digital advertisements, the company also emphasises that other biscuits variants such as chocolate, jeera , oat and honey cookies among others are also made with the ‘goodness of Amul butter’.
To amplify this messaging, the leading dairy co-operative also launched a contest on Twitter and Instagram, encouraging consumers to put up pictures of any brand of butter cookie and share their butter content. This comparative ad campaign is similar to what Amul had done in the ice-creams segment.
In its print and digital ads, it has been stating that Amul ice-creams are made of real milk, while frozen desserts contains vegetable oil and are not 100 per cent milk-based.
Industry players pointed out that this seems to be a serious attempt by Amul to make a dent in the biscuits market and is expected to disrupt the market.
A senior executive with a FMCG company said, “It’s a smart and interactive campaign, which makes consumers actually check-out the labels for the butter content. Even other social media users, who may not be participating in the contest, can see pictures of these labels.”
A senior official at GCMMF (Amul) said: “This is just to highlight the purity of ingredients. A butter cookie should have more butter in it. That is what we are trying to communicate to the consumer through this generic campaign. Consumers should check the contents before buying.”
Sources in the biscuits industry said that high butter content in cookies impacts pricing, making it more expensive. “The more butter you add to the product, the higher the price. It’s a call the companies take depending on the kind of price tag they want to have for their products,” an industry executive said.
Abneesh Roy, Executive Vice-President, Edelweiss Securities, stated in a research note, “While Amul cookies may be a healthier alternative to others and that might attract a niche segment of consumers, we believe that larger part of Indian consumers are value conscious and thus, it will be difficult for Amul to gain off take in the mass consumer segment at 2x pricing.”
Ambitious plans
GCMMF has laid down ambitious plans for bakery products. The dairy giant, which is already selling frozen foods, chocolate apart from other dairy products, has set up two bakery facilities at Anand and Surat.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.