Download - Brand Audit of Britannia Bourbon
BRAND AUDIT OF BRITANNIA BOURBON – ‘THE ORIGINAL’
SUBMITTED BY:
RISHI KHEMKA (09DM023)
KAUTUK CHAURASIA (09DM054)
PRAKHAR RAJ (09DM107)
ANURAG KASHYAP (09DM109)
PRADIPTA ROY (09DM112)
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 13th
September, 2010
PGDM – A
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A. BRAND DESCRIPTION
1. BRAND IDENTIFICATION & HISTORY:
Thick, rich and delicious chocolate sandwiched between two crunchy chocolate biscuits topped
with sugar crystals! This definitely calls to indulge one‟s dark side. The brand we have selected
for this project work is none other than „Britannia BOURBON‟.
India's first and favorite Bourbon's sweet adventure began in 1955. Since then, Bourbon lovers
across the country have been caught opening this chocolate couplet, licking the cream, and
nibbling at the melt-in-your-mouth biscuit, bit by bit. Some have been witnessed chomping it
whole, at one go. Some have been noted to alternate it with sips of coffee; others team it with
lots of gossip and gupshup, while a few have been observed enjoying it with a book. And some
have been seen reluctantly sharing their Bourbon.
Earlier when Britannia launched „TREAT‟, it included BOURBON in this category itself but
soon realized that this was like „trying to bound the CALYPSO in human form‟. BOURBON
was targeted to all the class of people of all the age groups primarily adolescents and adults
unlike TREAT which was targeted only towards the children. So Britannia played smart and re-
launched the Electric Ebony as the Original BOURBON.
2. CORPORATE INFORMATION:
The story of one of India's favorite brands reads almost like a fairy tale. Once upon a time, in
1892 to be precise, a biscuit company was started in a nondescript house in Calcutta (now
Kolkata) with an initial investment of Rs.295. The company we all know as Britannia today.
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The beginnings might have been humble-the dreams were anything but. By 1910, with the
advent of electricity, Britannia mechanized its operations, and in 1921, it became the first
company east of the Suez Canal to use imported gas ovens. Britannia's business was flourishing.
But, more importantly, Britannia was acquiring a reputation for quality and value. As a result,
during the tragic World War II, the Government reposed its trust in Britannia by contracting it to
supply large quantities of "service biscuits" to the armed forces.
As time moved on, the biscuit market continued to grow… and Britannia grew along with it. In
1975, the Britannia Biscuit Company took over the distribution of biscuits from Parry's who till
now distributed Britannia biscuits in India. In the subsequent public issue of 1978, Indian
shareholding crossed 60%, firmly establishing the Indianness of the firm. The following year,
Britannia Biscuit Company was re-christened Britannia Industries Limited (BIL). Four years
later in 1983, it crossed the Rs.100 crores revenue mark.
On the operations front, the company was making equally dynamic strides. In 1992, it celebrated
its Platinum Jubilee. In 1997, the company unveiled its new corporate identity - "Eat Healthy,
Think Better" - and made its first foray into the dairy products market. In 1999, the "Britannia
Khao, World Cup Jao" promotion further fortified the affinity consumers had with 'Brand
Britannia'.
Britannia strode into the 21st Century as one of India's biggest brands and the pre-eminent food
brand of the country. It was equally recognized for its innovative approach to products and
marketing: the Lagaan Match was voted India's most successful promotional activity of the year
2001 while the delicious Britannia 50-50 Maska-Chaska became India's most successful product
launch. In 2002, Britannia's New Business Division formed a joint venture with Fonterra, the
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world's second largest Dairy Company, and Britannia New Zealand Foods Pvt. Ltd. was born. In
recognition of its vision and accelerating graph, Forbes Global rated Britannia 'One amongst the
Top 200 Small Companies of the World', and The Economic Times pegged Britannia India's 2nd
Most Trusted Brand.
Today, more than a century after those tentative first steps, Britannia's fairy tale is not only going
strong but blazing new standards, and that miniscule initial investment has grown by leaps and
bounds to crores of rupees in wealth for Britannia's shareholders. The company's offerings are
spread across the spectrum with products ranging from the healthy and economical Tiger biscuits
to the more lifestyle-oriented Milkman Cheese. Having succeeded in garnering the trust of
almost one-third of India's one billion populations and a strong management at the helm means
Britannia will continue to dream big on its path of innovation and quality. And millions of
consumers will savour the results, happily ever after.
Management Information:
The CEO & MD of the Company is VINITA BALI. The management team of BIL is as follows:
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The location of the corporate office of BIL is:
Registered Office:
5/1/A Hungerford Street,
Kolkata - 700 017
West Bengal
Ph.: 033 - 2287 0505 / 2287 2439 / 2287 2057
Fax: 033 - 2287 2501
3. BRAND GRAPHIC:
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B. EXTERNAL MARKETING ENVIRONMENT
The external marketing environment has got a significant effect on the brand. This external
environment consists of Social, Demographic, Economic, Technological, Political, Legal and
Competitive Factors. Each factor has got a specific implication.
a) Social Factors: Our society is undergoing a period of changes. The habits and choices of
the society are changing. Biscuits which are actually snacks are being used as main food
by the student community. This has propelled the growth in the sales of the biscuits.
Britannia Bourbon has become the choice of the society and is liked by people at mass.
Hence it can be said that society is having a positive influence on the sales of Britannia
Bourbon.
b) Demographic Factors: The demographic factors such as age, sex, income, occupation,
etc… all of them are having a positive impact on Britannia Bourbon. As the brand is
targeted towards the adolescents, youth and the adult, there is absolutely no restriction to
the reach of the brand. The changing lifestyle of people from normal life of old times to
fast life of modern era is promoting more consumption of readymade eatables like
Britannia Bourbon.
c) Economic Factors: At this moment of time when prices of all the commodities are
touching the sky, Britannia Bourbon is available to the consumers at affordable prices
and consistent high quality. Although Britannia Bourbon is a premium product in its
segment, it is still affordable by everyone.
d) Technological Factors: Whatever be the technology developed by the R&D team of
Britannia Bourbon, the taste and quality of the biscuits is amazing and consistent. No
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competitor has been able to achieve the taste and quality level which has been
benchmarked by Britannia Bourbon.
e) Competitive Factors: Britannia Bourbon has truly been the king of the market in its
segment. It is priced more than its competitors but is still the first choice for buyers
because of its taste and quality. Apart from this, the strong and efficient distribution
channel ensures the constant supply of the brand to the shelves in the market. The
retailers and wholesalers however get incentives in the form of margins and discount to
promote the product. In terms of the competitive factors, Britannia Bourbon is the leader
on all frontiers and hence can be considered as untouchable or invincible by other
brands. It has left all its competitors starting from Sunfeast and Bisk Farm to Parle and
Dukes far behind in the competition. The craze is such for this brand that it has become a
generic for „BOURBON‟, the most popular type of chocolate cream biscuits which are
actually named after a whiskey.
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C. MARKETING MIX
1. PRODUCT:
a. Product Type: Britannia Bourbon is a convenience product. It is easily available
across the marketplace at various outlets starting from the local kirana store to the
supermarkets like Reliance Fresh and Food Bazar. It is a product which is sought
daily by the consumers and the purchase decision in this case is quick & positive.
It is available in 5 different packs as pocket pack, party pack, hangout pack,
family pack and gift pack. The biscuits inside those packets are really tempting
and mouth-watering which makes the tagline „indulge your dark side‟ come real.
The consistency in the product has been such that in spite of many me too
products venturing the market our brand is still unmoved and unaffected by any
sense of competition. The Rs.120-crore brand has a 33 per cent market share in
chocolate biscuits market.
b. Product Life Cycle: Britannia Bourbon is in the Growth Phase of product life
cycle. There has been a significant increase in sales figures which is still rising.
Besides the competition has increased a lot by the entry of new players like
Sunfeast Dream Cream Bourbon, Parle Hide & Seek Bourbon, Bisk Farm My
Favourite Bourbon and Dukes Bourbon.
The awareness about this brand has increased in leaps & bounds while the
popularity of the brand is touching skies. Britannia Bourbon has made
BOURBON so popular that new words have been coined after Bourbon like:
„BOURBONEER meaning group of people that loves eating BOURBON‟,
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„BOURBER means BOURBON eating male‟ and „BOURBONETTE meaning
BOURBON eating females‟.
2. PLACE:
a. Marketing Channels: Britannia Bourbon follows intensive channeling strategies
using a plethora of whole-sellers & retailers to make the product available to the
market. The company uses both; push as well as pull strategy to sell its product in
the market. The channel followed is much simpler as the company directly sends
the product from factory to distributors who then forward the stock to the whole-
sellers and retailers. The product is available everywhere, be it a small grocery
shop or a large Shopper‟s Stop store.
b. Major Retail Outlets: The brand is sold at every possible location starting from a
small local grocery shop to the super stores and hypermarkets. Some major retail
outlets are:
i. Grocery Stores
ii. Reliance Fresh
iii. Food Bazar (Big Bazar)
iv. Pantaloons
v. Shopper’s Stop
c. Effectiveness of these Retail outlets: The retail outlets have been highly effective
implementing the pull strategy, and thus pulling the customers to buy Britannia
Bourbon. The sales figures for BIL has increased rapidly from 1817.92 crore in
the year 2005-06 to 3424.58 crore in the year 2009-10. As Britannia Bourbon is a
convenience product, the ease in availability is an important factor for the success
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of the brand. Hence by looking at the success of our brand, we can easily
conclude that the retail outlets selling our brand have been highly effective in
catering the needs of the market and thus, satisfying and attracting customers
towards this brand.
3. PRICE:
a. Pricing Objective: The pricing of Britannia Bourbon is profit oriented. This is
evident from the very fact that Britannia Bourbon is prices higher than its
competitors in the market. A 169gm (15 biscuits) pack of Britannia Bourbon is
priced at Rs.22/- while 170gm (15 biscuits) of Bisk Farm and 148gm (16 biscuits)
of Sunfeast are all available at Rs.20/- However the quality of Britannia Bourbon
drives the sales efficiently despite of the profit oriented pricing.
b. Pricing Strategy: Britannia Bourbon follows the ‘Status Quo’ pricing strategy.
The company has efficiently maintained the high quality of the product never
compromising on any frontier be it the chocolate quality or the quality of the
biscuits or even the sugar crystals. This has helped the brand position itself as a
premium brand and hence maintain the status quo pricing keeping the prices more
than its competitors.
c. Fine – Tuning the Base Price: The strategy used by our brand for fine – tuning the
base price is giving margin and discount to retailers & wholesalers. Britannia
gives 10% margin to the retailers and 3% margin to the wholesalers. The
wholesalers get another 2% discount along with the mentioned margin. Apart
from this no strategy or tactics are followed by Britannia Bourbon to fine – tune
its base price. Direct discounts or offers to customers have hardly been seen in
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case of Britannia Bourbon. This strategy has left the customers with the following
prices:
i. Nano Pack – Rs.5/-
ii. Pocket Pack – Rs.12/-
iii. Hang-out Pack – Rs.15/-
iv. Party Pack – Rs.22/-
4. PROMOTION:
a. Analysis of Advertising Campaigns: Britannia Bourbon was previously
categorized under the kid-centric „Treat‟ catalogue but lately after conducting
several researches about the target customers and the potential of the brand,
Britannia Cream Treat Bourbon was rebranded as Britannia Bourbon – The
Original.
An extensive ad campaign is now being used with the tagline „Andar se kuch aur,
Bahar se kuch aur!‟ which ties the surprising resourcefulness of youth with the
biscuit‟s characteristics of chocolate sandwiched between biscuits. “Bourbon,
through the ad, becomes a partner in your pranks,” sums up Prasoon Joshi, the
head of creative team at McCann .The tongue-in-cheek ad is the first ad directed
by the dark theme film maker Anurag Basu which blends how the youth usually
get their way through ingenious means with the experience of eating a Britannia
Bourbon. A girl, miffed at her boyfriend watching a cricket match with his gang
of friends on an evening planned for a date, does not protest. She instead turns the
very act of enjoying a Bourbon biscuit into a trigger for them to be driven out of
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the house. The boyfriend, of course, does not want his friends‟ imagination to run
riot.
The print ad of Britannia Bourbon is somewhat the same provoking us to enjoy
our moments in life. The print ad is as follows:
Hoping to strengthen its appeal with the youth, which it couldn‟t boast of until
now, Britannia is pegging the brand as an anytime product that, for example, can
be had on the go with a cup of coffee. Below the line activities include tie-ups
with cafes and college fests and more distribution in departmental stores near
colleges. After this current campaign, the brand is expected to post a growth of
15%.
b. Media Types used in Advertising: Britannia uses TV and print media (magazines)
for advertising apart from Over-the-counter advertising using the posters of
BOURBON. However, it is only the TV ad of this brand which is tremendously
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popular. The sense of fun drives the viewers of the ad crazy and this craze
combined with the amazing taste persuades the consumers to go for ‘word of
mouth promotion’ of the brand.
c. Public Relations: Britannia has largely underutilized the public relations tools for
promotion. The major PR tool used by Britannia is good investor relationships.
Britannia is the 5th
Most Trusted Brand in India after Nokia, Colgate, Lux and
Dettol, while it is the most trusted Food Product Brand. The investors are happy
investing in the shares of the company as they are assured of getting good returns.
The company rewards the investors with incentives frequently and this has helped
a lot in maintaining cordial relationship between the two. Sometimes, the
company also goes for product publicity via newspapers and its website. The
website of Britannia has proved to be yet another effective tool for maintaining
public relations by the company.
d. Sales Promotion: For the sales promotion purpose Britannia gives margin and
discounts to the wholesalers and the retailers. The retailers get a margin of 10%
while the wholesalers get a margin of 3%. The wholesalers also get an additional
discount of 2%. This acts as push strategy in sales promotion as the product is
pushed through the distribution channel. However it should be noted that this
brand hardly needs any sales promotion to increase sales because of its consistent
quality and high brand value.
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D. SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS:
o Quality – The quality of Britannia Bourbon has always been uncompromised and
extraordinary. It is uniform in all the biscuits in all the packs. This is one of the
most important factors that people buy the product in spite of its higher price.
o Taste – The richness in taste is such that it‟ll just spellbind the one who consumes
it. The biscuits are light baked, perforated with sugar crystals sprinkled over them
and carry an implicit taste of chocolate. The chocolate cream is thick and rich and
makes one feel in heaven.
o Consistency – The brand has been consistent with its quality and taste for a long
period of time and this has become one of its strength as people now swear by its
taste and quality.
o Price – The price of our brand is higher than its competitors, but acts as strength
because it gives the feel of a premium product which is affordable by all.
o Packaging – The unique and attractive packaging of this brand helps to attract the
buyers to have look at the product after which they actually can‟t resist to buy our
brand.
WEAKNESSES:
o Calories – The health freak customers will definitely avoid the brand as it
contains calories and is so heavy that one won‟t prefer to have more than 3 – 4
biscuits at one go. However much can‟t be done on this aspect because its all due
to the taste and quality of the brand and changing this will spoil everything.
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OPPORTUNITIES:
o The brand with its uncompromised and consistent high quality and rich taste can
clean sweep the stakes in the chocolate cream biscuit market. Britannia Bourbon
is already the market leader with 33% market share of cream biscuit market. This
is an opportunity for the brand.
o The brand can further accelerate the sales if some offers directed towards the
consumers are provided which hasn‟t been done before.
o Coming up with a family pack can me a successful venture for Britannia Bourbon.
THREATS:
o Dukes Bourbon: It is the only threat to our brand in terms of competitors because
of its good quality and taste at low price, however Dukes is not that popular brand
and the supply chain of Dukes is also not that effective.
REFERENCES
“http://www.britannia.co.in/index.htm”
“http://www.theadtube.com/articles/tag/britannia-bourbon/”
“http://www.britannia.co.in/Britannia_AR_2010.pdf”