DELHI: The ongoing economic slowdown is bugging a lot of brands and marketers out there but Mother Dairy is utilising the slight slump in the financial market to expand its footprints within the country. The brand has recently announced its new brand positioning with a fresh “Rishton Ka Swad Badhaye'' campaign and is also working hard to expand its distributorship. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com about coming out with a new brand positioning during such tumultuous times, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Pvt. Ltd business head – value added dairy products Sanjay Sharma said that big brands like theirs remain largely unscathed during times
of economic stress.

“What happens is that during such times of ambiguity, bigger brands like us normally try and do better because smaller brands do not have money to expand or advertise. Dairy is a category dominated by small regional brands. Most of the states have strong regional dairy brands except 2-3 national brands like Amul or Mother Dairy. In situations like this, these smaller brands usually suffer. That’s why we thought that this is the right time to hit the market and also
expand the distribution to leverage more and expand,” he elaborated.

The brand is taking this opportunity to penetrate deeper into the market and has increased its marketing budget by more than 50 per cent for the particular campaign. The campaign is expected to create awareness among the consumers and strengthen the image of the brand as
a “caregiver”.

Sharma elucidates that the brand is planning an extensive digital campaign to promote the new positioning. There has been a change in the packaging too, with 80-85 per cent already revamped. It will take another three to four months to change the look and feel of the complete product portfolio. New additions in the ice-cream category are also expected.

Expanding further on the marketing strategy, Sharma stated, “The channels we are targetting are dominantly digital and in the next financial year, we are coming out with a TV commercial as well. The TVC will be running on family and kids channel because we are trying to reach out to young mothers. For ice cream and other such products, we will use digital. A lot of BTL campaigns will also happen for the segment including product samplings and reaching directly to the consumers. We are planning very exciting campaigns around our cheese products.”

Sharma is also very excited to explore opportunities on music-streaming apps like Spotify and Gaana. “We are really gung ho (about voice-streaming services). The TG there is very right for products like cheese and ice creams.The millennials are no longer listening to radio and have
moved to these apps.”

He continued, “Our objective is very clear. We want to reach the millennials and what are the different touchpoints we can use for that; it can be digital, TV, radio, print, outdoor, and such apps. The consumer attention is very small now and it is very difficult to find out what is working and when you have such a big campaign, you have to focus entirely, 360-degrees.”

Sharma is also planning to explore the realm of product integration in digital content to expand the reach of the new positioning and reach the millennial consumer. There are no active campaigns in the pipeline but he has definitely got that on top of his mind as well, he share