Page 146 - DMGT551_RETAIL_BUSINESS_ENVIRONMENT

Unit 7: The Customers and the Retail Business: Knowing Your Customers

Notes

Case Study Cadbury-Kraft Focuses on Consumer

Behaviour Inside Shops

helves full of Oreo biscuits at a local Mumbai store are described as a “blue wall” by
visiting Cadbury-Kraft executives. The food giant has attempted to replicate the
Smetaphoric “blue-wall” in many stores in Mumbai and other cities in a bid to drive
sales in the last one year.
The results have been encouraging. Since its launch, Oreo has garnered an over six percent
market share in the lucrative and intensely fought ` 4,000 crore premuim biscuit market,
where it competes with Britannia’s Treat-O and Bourbon, Parle Products’ Kreams and
Hide & Seek, and ITC’s Sunfeast, among others.
What Cadbury-Kraft is doing with Oreo is part of a game that includes other brands and
categories as well. In the last year, the firm has aggressively pushed a marketing & sales
programme that has targeted shoppers in the top metros and cities of the country.
Branded visicoolers, a range of dispensers developed by local and international design
experts, are part of the company’s efforts to make the overall shopping experience exciting
for consumers. The firm has refurbished packaging of its brands such as chewing gum
brand Bubbaloo and pushed promotions to drive sales.
Taking a leaf out of rival Hindustan Unilever’s retail strategy in Perfect Stores, which
focuses on in-store display and placement of products after studying shopper behaviour
and preferences, Cadbury-Kraft will follow a similar path at the top 50,000 high-end
groceries, food stores and chemists within its retail universe of over 700,000 stores in
India.
Studying consumers

Sunil Taldar, director, sales and international business, Cadbury-Kraft Foods, said the
focus on behaviour of consumers in shops is important because they make the final purchase
decision there.

“How your product is positioned, its packaging, pricing, etc. goes a long way in determining
whether they will buy the product,” said Taldar, who has worked with Cadbury for more
than a decade in different markets, including China, and moved to India last year to head
sales for the combined Cadbury-Kraft business.

Cadbury-Kraft Foods, an unlisted unit of US food major Kraft Foods, which in 2010 bought
Cadbury, has been able to drive incremental sales growth of over 10 per cent in the last
one year, helping it achieve a 40 per cent growth in sales during the first nine months of
2011, said Taldar. The company worked furiously last year to integrate Kraft brands such
as Oreo and Tang into the strong Cadbury distribution system in India. For calendar year
2010, Cadbury reported net sales of ` 2,652 crore - a growth of close to 30 per cent over the
previous year.

The 50,000 outlets Cadbury-Kraft is focused on in India stock one or more of these products:
chocolates which include Cadbury Dairy Milk, Celebrations, Bournville, 5 Star, Perk, and
Gems; confectionary such as Bubbaloo, Eclairs, and Halls; biscuits such as Oreo and powdered
beverages that include Tang and Bournvita.
Contd...

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