Kellogg’s in India
Will Keith Kellogg founded the US Kellogg’s in 1906, but today it is a multinational food manufacturing company. Kellogg’s is a leading US producer of cereals and convenience foods, cookies, crackers, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and other related vegetarian foods. Some of the brands offered by the company are; Frosted Flakes, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Cocoa Krispies, Special K, Keebler, Pringles, Kashi, Pop-Tarts, Cheez-It, Nutri-Grain, Eggo, Morningstar Farms, etc. The stated purpose of Kellogg’s has been “Nourishing families so they can flourish and thrive.”
Kellogg’s decided to expand its product in India by the name of Kellogg’s India in 1994. They started launching their top brand; Corn Flakes’ and they had planned to invest around 65 million dollars on this project. Indian economist as well as Kellogg’s got excited about this huge amount of investment when considering the vast market size of India, and increasing employment improve the lifestyles of the households. Despite the high hope, Corn Flakes were an initial failure in India that was the unexpected situation for the company. On the contrary, Kellogg’s was extremely confident that their product would be a success in Indian market. Kellogg’s is a global brand, so they are experienced in foreign markets because their products are manufactured in 18 countries and sold in over 180 countries (Translatemedia, 2015).
The positioning strategy of the brand is healthy and nutritional brand was totally disappointment. Furthermore, Indian market did not accept the main point of the brand benefits, and negative media critics started. This negative perception created the disaffection among the consumers, and then more consumers even rejected the taste the cereals. In the end, the company had to retract the product in the same year, in 1994. The company did not give up expanding strategy in the Indian market completely; this is not a failure story. After several months, they re-launched the product and entered the market again analyzing the product and researching the market (Kumar, 2012). What were the reasons for Kellogg’s inadequate strategies? Let see:
Kellogg’s had launched their new product (Corn Flakes’) being crispy flakes like as they are doing all other markets. The company though that at Indian consumers eating traditions and benefits are expected from breakfast is as same as western consumers. In those times, cereals did not common in India besides Indians generally used the milk hot and with sugar. When they used the new product with hot milk, flakes became soggy. Moreover, they thought that later added sugar could not dissolve in cereal. Therefore, the cold and unsweetened milk was not fit for their taste. This is the reason of Frosties that ready-sweetened cereal brand launched later (Translatemedia, 2015).
The initial launch of Kellogg’s was a nightmare for the company. Then the Kellogg has started to find a way as an alternative to the regular Indian breakfast. The traditional Indian breakfast is heavy, and individuals feel fullness at the end of Indian breakfast that full of Parantas, Puris, and Dosas. Kellogg’s Cornflake breakfast does not give that feeling of fullness even messages in its packages, nutrition, and crispiness. This message and attributes of the cereals were far from the concept of having a total breakfast. Indian consumers were feeling hungry after having a cornflake-based breakfast. Later Kellogg’s redesigned the packages of cereals as a fun choice rather than just nutrition.
Kellogg’s two brands; Chocos (September 1996) and Frosties (April 1997) became successful in India that even the company surprised with that result, and sales picked up significantly. Chocos were wheat scoops coated with chocolate while Frosties had sugar frosting on individual flakes. Indian consumers were consuming these products not only cereal but also as snacks. After this dazzling success, the company launched the Chocos Breakfast Cereal Biscuits. After this big success, Kellogg’s took a radical decision to focus on totally Indianizing its flavors in the future, and company manufactured the Mazza series in August 1998 - a crunchy, almond-shaped corn breakfast cereal in three local flavors – ‘Mango Elaichi’, ’Coconut Kesar’ and ‘Rose.’ (ICMR, 2001).
Kellogg’s revised all strategy not just product type or ingredients. They used brand names like Iron-Shakti, they diversified the sizes of packaging; Corn Flakes was made available in the family pack. The company used local faces such as a yoga instructor and Kathakali dancer in the advertising campaign. Kellogg’s also started to educate the Indian population about the different healthy alternatives of breakfast. They launched a series of Consumer Awareness Campaigns like as they reached out to the students across some schools in the country. The products now came in attractive and with goodies as well for the kids and the teens (Utkarsh, 2015).
It seems that Kellogg’s main fault is the too confident when entered the market. The main point is not enough searching for local tastes and habits, shortly consumers’ attitudes towards their breakfast products before entering in (Translatemedia, 2015).