IIM Indore

Ashok Kumar K

Keerthan G

Vel Bhagyaraj M

Drawing inferences from MasterKong’s entry into Finland

The following are the facts collected through survey conducted in Finland while analyzing the prospect of MasterKong’s noodles: Age group 19-25 (36%), 26-30(28%), under 18 (8%). The customer profile consist of Students(42%), office worker(35%),

unemployed (10%) and others (13%). This clearly shows that the target are students till the age of 24 and no more

kids the only target population. Yippee needs a change in their advertisement strategy.

Customers interested in gifts are 44%, discounts 29%, extra quantity 26%, others 1%. This gives a hint on how to work on Yippee’s promotion strategy.

The channel preferred by consumers to receive product information is through TV Ad 52%, newspapers & magazines 37%.

Most common reason to buy new products are advertisements (33%), promotions (35%) and package ( 30%). Yippee lags behind in promotion.

Consumers hunt for flavors with 85% favoring it. Yippee’s new flavors on line will help boost up the sales.

Most preferred point of sale is the supermarkets(79%) and the Mom & Pop store(18%).

Take away for Yippee from MasterKong’s survey

Target students under the age group 19 -25 and the other

segment of age 26-30, since Noodles is evolving into a

family snack.

Promotions in the form of discounts and gifts. Even Maggi

relied on promotion during early days

Increase brand recall through TV Ads and

Newspaper Ads.

Concentrate on Supermarket chains to

push the product.

Increase the flavors available since customers hunt for flavors and the Maggi Boomers are teenagers who

crave for flavors

Reference of the survey: https://publications.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/24601/Hu_Wenwen.pdf?sequence=1

Maggi too had the trouble When Maggi introduced 2-in-1 packs and 4-in-1 packs in

1993 sales volume increased to 9700 tonnes in 1994 and 13000 tonnes in 1995 but the sale in year 1996 stagnated at the 1995 level.

Maggi tried recovering through introducing macaroni, pickles, soups but none of them brought a drastic turn over.

It was the new flavors which actually brought in a growth volume for the Maggi team.

Take away is that the children who grew with Maggi are now teenagers and the same are the potential targets for Yippee. They can be targeted with different flavors so as to bring in an increase in the dipping sales in NCR region.

Reference: http://www.slideshare.net/hemanthcrpatna/a-study-of-maggi-brand-repositioning-and-extension

Questionnaire used in survey A short questionnaire was prepared to find the preference of consumers from NCR region with different diet patterns

A rating from 0 to 4 was done with 0 indicating low relevance and 4 being high relevance

A study was made to know their perception about noodles in general and Yippee as a brand and the preference for family packs.

Rating in terms of significance0- least 1- less 2- average 3- high 4- very high

Questions

1. Do you prefer instant foods?

2. Do you wish to try new brands of noodles?

3. Do you have inclination towards a particular brand of noodles?

4. If yippee was the answer then reasons for the same was asked if Yippee wasn’t preferred then reasons were asked ?

5. Do you have inclination towards health factor in noodles?

6. Do you prefer smaller packs to family packs?

Some open ended questions asked1. How often do you go for shopping home essentials?

2. When do you usually buy noodles?

3. Who consumes noodles at your home?(kids/family)

4. What time of the day do you prefer to have noodles?(‘multiple times’ can be indicated)

5. Who buys noodles for your home?

Reasons for the decline from the survey we conducted The introduction of family packs has reduced the customer shopping

frequency for noodles. Customers who on an average bought two packets of 100 gram per month

( cited by GSK VP) bought extra smaller packets anticipating emergency needs. But with Family packs’ debut, customers prefer buying one family pack for the whole month since additional pack is a drain on their budget.

Customers who on an average shop twice a month and bought small packs during each of their shopping have shifted to shop one family pack during the first shopping visit and removing noodles from their shopping list on the second occasion.

Children decide the number of additional small packets purchased while visiting shops convincing their mothers that they want one more pack for the month and due to family packs the convincing power of children have reduced.

The compulsion to cook a noodles packet once opened is another parameter which is a dislike for consumers to prefer smaller packs to family packs. Since consumers feel it hard to store a packet which was already opened.

Contd. Advertisements target children as the main recipient but noodles

is evolving into a family snack rather than a kid’s snack. Health factors has high prominence when consumer purchase

family packs. The consumer aren’t too particular about health when testing a new brand and hence opt to buy smaller packs. Hence a decline in the expected sale when family packs were introduced.

Maggi’s brand recall is a deterrent to consumers when they think of a family packs. It takes time to change the perception but it is possible to bring about a change.

Way Forward The situation calls for an area wise survey to analyze whether the dip

is prevalent throughout the NCR region or a single region pulling down a potential chunk of sales volume.

Analysis of supply and demand issue of Maggi the market leader, during the introduction of Yippee and during the sales dip season to find out whether the market leader is into aggressive promotions.

A survey to capture the consumer mindset about family packs and Yippee’s flavors.

To analyze the flavor taste of the teenagers (the Maggi boomers) potential for health variants.

Introducing family packs in other areas on pilot scale to test if a similar dip occurs.