Trying to make India-specific portfolios, price points: Mars Wrigley CGM

We try not only the traditional ways of distributing but look at various ways of distributing through digital channels, says Parmar

The FMCG industry has evolved rapidly to match pace with the changing times. Kalpesh R Parmar, Country General Manager, Mars Wrigley, India spoke to Akshara Srivastava about how the brand is adapting to digital and is appealing to a larger section of people through Indianised flavours and price points. Edited excerpts:

1. Mars Wrigley recently launched an Indian flavour for Snickers. What was the thought behind it? Is the brand aiming to increase its adoption in semi urban and rural areas? 

India is just not one country, but 29 countries. Hence, we have looked at various ways of reaching out to consumers and communities from a flavour perspective or look at it from a location-based consumption.

According to industry data, you have a large $3 billion Chocolate and Gums, Mints and Fruity Confections (gmfc) category, with chocolates poised to grow by 8 to 12 per cent year on year for the next five to eight years and GMFC growing at 4-5 per cent.

Our constant endeavour is how to drive the product’s penetration and usership across different consumer groups, geographies, and tiers. The objective for Snickers Kesar Pista was to excite the consumers and to remain relevant to the tastes of the vast majority of consumers. However, the relevance of the new flavour is not just limited to semi urban and rural areas, rather it is across geographies. It is equally relevant for big metro markets.

2. What is the brand's presence like in rural areas?

Five years ago, the leadership team of India realised that with the integration of Mars with Wrigley brand in 2017, there was a huge opportunity to take a portion of chocolates into more gum-based outlets. Because gums are a Re 1 category which is very well penetrated across India.

With the freedom of operating in our factories, we can experiment and make India centric portfolio and price points.

We have Snickers and Galaxy at Rs 10. The idea is to make our portfolio relevant for semi-urban and rural areas with price points and various interventions even in gums with fruity confection. We also have Skittles at Re 1. We are trying now to be more emerging market savvy with a Re 1 Doublemint and Re 1 Orbit. 

Therefore, we have a portfolio, which is spanning from opening price points to cater to these semi urban and rural markets. And a portfolio at premium price points, which is relevant for metro consumers as well.

3. One long lasting impact of the pandemic has been to shift to online. How has Mars Wrigley adapted to this? Is there a plan for digital transformation?

The pandemic has been tough, but we used the opportunity to rewire, retool the whole organisation. So, we introduced new variants, price points and campaigns. We know that the media habits are changing across generations, and not just limited to millennials and Gen Z. The more pronounced amongst millennials and Gen Z is social media, influencer marketing, or digital, OTT has become very relevant. We have been addressing this change from the content standpoint for a few years. Snickers has pioneered few campaigns, like the Hunger Bar campaign, the gratitude campaign during the pandemic, where people gifted Snickers digitally. There was a campaign on examinations because it is very relevant from the Gen Z population standpoint, which we plan to continue this year as well.

As travel stopped, we saw that as a big opportunity. 

We are also constantly looking at how people are watching the campaigns. Our contribution to digital in the last two years has drastically changed, and now is almost as high as what traditional media is.

All this has helped us to move our eCommerce contribution to high single digits

4. What are your aims for the brand this coming year as we move back to normal?

Indian is one of our key growth markets. From an investment perspective, we are always investing ahead of the curve. Talking about factories, we have three world-class factories in the country, and we continue to expand them from a route to market perspective. We are increasing our distribution quarter on quarter very aggressively. We try not only the traditional ways of distributing but look at various ways of distributing through digital channels.

In the last few months, we have launched a huge range of Galaxy in India, which is available across variants. There is the classic smooth milk variant, then you have fruit and nut, and then there is cookie crumble, a flavour that was popular in the UK that we launched here. These are available at price points starting from Rs 10 to Rs 140. Launching candies like Skittles and Doublemint at Re 1 is another example.

So, the constant journey of innovation and driving relevance with the consumers will continue.