FritoLay ups marketing ante

With the branded snacks market buzzing with new entrants, the FritoLay division of PepsiCo India Holdings has kicked off a marketing campaign "Chala Change Ka Chakkar", which the company claims is its biggest ever portfolio initiative in 2008.

As part of this initiative, the company would give several consumer offers on each pack of all its snack brands Lay's, Kurkure, Cheetos, Uncle Chipps or Lehar.

The details of this initiative would be formally announced on February 1. The initiative would run for a duration from January 1, 2008 to April 30, 2008.

This comes after the company undertook a rebranding exercise last year and introduced the concept of 'Snack Smart' through which it reduced the amount of saturated fat in its products by 40 per cent. It has also launched limited edition flavours that will remain in the market for a fixed period of time.

In the Rs 1,860 crore branded snacks market, FritoLay commands a market share of 45 per cent, followed by Haldirams at 27 per cent and ITC at 16 per cent.

The competition in this market has increased with the entry of new players such as Amul and several biscuit companies such as Britannia Industries and Parle Products.

The increased activitiy in this sector has expanded the size of the market.

The branded snacks market accounts for 16 per cent value and 12 per cent volume sales in 2007. According to a projection by Euromonitor International, the branded snacks market is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 14 per cent and would reach a value of Rs 3,510 crore by 2012.

With "Chala Change Ka Chakkar", FritoLay plans to lure consumers through a slew of lucky prizes ranging from Honda Civic 1.8V, Philips LCD TV to spending an entire day with celebrity brand ambassadors Saif Ali Khan and Juhi Chawla.

The first batch of Lay's under this initiative has already hit the market. Each of the Rs 10 and Rs 20 priced packs carry an assurance of a win and chance to win over Rs 2.5 crore worth of prizes.