Successful Indian Brands And Reasons For Their Success

In this article, I have travelled through time and have listed down the highly successful Indian brands and their reason for success.

Introduction:

India has several strong brands in its category which are topmost in the business they operate. The purpose of this blog is to enumerate some of the success stories and underlying reasons for the success of those products and brands.

Amul Products

Amul is the undisputed king of the FMCG industry in India with a rich portfolio of marquee brands in its field of presence. It has various range of products like Butter, milk, milk-based drinks, cheese, curd, buttermilk, chocolates, ice creams, chocolates (including dark chocolates) etc.

It’s one of the largest brands in terms of size and has the highest annual turnover in the industry i.e. more than Rs. 38,000 crore.

One of the major competitors to Amul is Mother Dairy. Both of these brands are cooperative and not corporate entities with one of the largest bases of milk growers. Both brands have changed the face of the dairy sector of India and transformed the lives of millions of small milk producers.

It is also the largest milk buyer in the country, with the highest penetration of Indian households.

USPs

• Low pricing
• Good quality
• Convenient packing
• Easy availability across India
• Innovative advertising with the lowest cost in the industry. (Amul girl is now a household name with its current issues based cartoons splashed all newspapers and hoardings across key roads of cities)
• Efficient and largest supply chain

Marico’s Brands – Parachute and Saffola

Parachute Oil

Historically, the coconut oil is consumed in South India with Kerala being the largest consumer. This oil is crushed from raw coconuts from the trees and converted into pure oil at homes.

Harsh Mariwala was the first to spot the opportunity in a large unbranded marked of loose raw oil, dominated by the informal sector. He converted the commodity business into a reputed brand and gradually gained a major share of branded oil segment. The market share of Marico (which produce and market parachute oil brand) consistently hovered around 50% and Parachute had been the leader of the market.

Parachute brand had since been successfully extended to various coconut-based products such as advanced skin cream. Hair cream etc.

Marico success mantra is to focus on marketing and promotion efforts and the expansion of distribution network backed by neighbourhood Kirana stores and organised retail chains. The impact of COVID-19 is shifting consumer buying preferences online which has led Marico to change its marketing strategy to omnichannel selling.

Saffola

Safflola refined cooking oil with its health-based appeal and innovation that attracted consumers in the premium health-conscious segment, with its focus on heart health and related ailments. Saffola brand has since been extended to various health-based products including ready to eat oats, soups and others.

Marico, which produces both these brands is having the largest distribution network across India backed by effective advertisement campaigns and right messaging to target consumers.

Essentially, USP of both brands is the same which these brands continue to capitalise and expand market share.

Parle

Parle biscuits, with affordability and mass consumer appeal, is India’s most successful brand story. Unforgettable picture of little sweet child licking his fingers on its packaging leaves a unique mark on our mind. This is one child who refused to grow and seems to be an immortal child.

The price point of Rs 5 per pack (now Rs 6) was an innovation which it’s competitors have no choice but to follow.

COVID-19 has severally impacted most of the businesses, but proof of the strength of Parle biscuits is reflected in strong come back of this brand, immediately after production facilities were reopened.

Raymond Fabrics

Raymond fabrics particularly, trousers and suit pieces are reigning bridegroom favourite marriage dress and brides family preferred marriage gift to relatives.

The brand has a strong chain of retail stores across India backed by effective advertising campaigns, target messaging and quickly adaptable to ever-changing consumers tastes.

There is hardly any competition to Raymond and it will continue to gain market share with continuing investment in retail stores.

Limca and Thumbs Up

Thumbs up, Limca and Gold Spot were the marques brands of their time were acquired by Coca Cola decades back.

These most popular brands could not be relegated to the background by Coca Cola own brands as Indian consumers had developed the taste of these drinks, which was based on what Indians like to drink across all age universe.

Thumps Up and Limca continues to rule cola and lemon flavoured segments and a story of successful brands.

Haldiram and Others

Haldiram, Bikanewala produces the most delicious snacks and packaged food items. They are the market leader in this high growth segment. North Indian ethnic snacks, food and sweets are their unique selling proposition like Samosas, Chats, Rasgulla, and more.

Ghasitaram was also a famous and brand of Mumbai in the same category but over a period lost its customer base due to family disputes and other reasons.

Strong distribution network and retail outlets are the strength of these brands. These outlets have large scale presence in Delhi, Nagpur and other major cities.

Various large corporates and investors are keen to buy these brands but had not been successful so far.

Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar

Kishore Biyani has been acknowledged as King of retail in India. A few years back, the retail sector including neighborhood grocery stores has been largely an unorganised business, due to convenience and accessibility factors. Biyani was first to spot this vast opportunity and set up a large organised retail chain of stores at key locations. These stores retail a large variety of items ranging from fresh fruits/ vegetables, grocery, bakery, branded apparel’s, consumer durables -like TV, refrigerators, luggage etc.

However, of late, it has been making huge losses due to over-leveraging, unplanned expansion, promoters pledge of shares for loans to fund strain finances etc. Now Reliance retail has stepped in to acquire the business and integrate it with its large chains of Reliance Mart and Reliance Fresh.

Reliance has set its eye on leveraging the Jio platform integrating its retail business with e-commerce and has also launched the Jio Mart app. to facilitate online buying by consumers.

It is in process of registering millions of grocery stores on its platform (like Amazon and Flipkart, its strong competitors) to facilitate its business, offline grocery shops and convenient buying by customers.

This is just a beginning for Reliance, its experience in retailing and financial muscle power is going to exponentially expand the business and market share.

E-commerce is going through a transformation in India. Impact of Covid-19 has changed consumer behavior and online buying is now the preferred mode of buying with the convenience of online payments and contactless home delivery.

These are not the only successful Indian brands. There are many such successful Indian brands with substantively similar strengths and USP.

Some other strong and successful Indian brands include Dabur, ITC FMCG products, FabIndia, and more. In addition, innovative start-up brands like Paytm, Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy, MakeMyTrip, OYO, Byjus, and more are establishing themselves as strong brands for the long term.

Read More: Steps to Define A Marketing Strategy For Niche Products

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