Quaker Oats, launched in India in 2006 is said to be the category creator for a product like Oats, which was earlier not a popular product category amongst the Indian consumers.
The Challenge
The biggest challenge for the brand has been to build cultural relevance for a product (Oats) which is naturally not relevant to Indian consumers and is not a part of Indian consumer’s life. Citing the importance of culture in any brands success, Vidur Vyas, Marketing Director, PepsiCo Foods India recalls Peter Drucker’s famous qoute, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Vyas further stressed that a marketer may have the best strategy in the world but if it is not culturally relevant, it is not going to work.
So the biggest challenge for Quaker Oats was to make it relevant to the Indian consumers. And the diverse Indian food habits added to the problems and made it a dual challenge for the brand.
The Strategy
Quaker Oats funneled down the common needs of Indian consumers and focused on meeting those needs. These are: Substantial Nutrition, Sustained Energy and Convenience.
Apart from the diverse food habit, health is another factor that has been playing on Indian consumers’ mind for a while now.“Pursuing Health is Stressful,” says Vyas.
So the diverse habit and health factor are the two things on which PepsiCo Foods based its relevance model.
Like roof is the most important part of a house, PepsiCo Foods decided to put a noble cause as the roof of its relevance model for Quaker Oats.“We thought we should have a noble cause, something that the consumer thinks makes us stand apart,” says Vyas. And the noble cause that Quaker chose is ‘Make India Heart Healthy’.
But why the need of a noble cause and how does it help the brand? Today there are so many brands offering similar propositions that brands are more like a commodity and we are moving towards commoditisation. We find similar products and similar service next door. There is no differentiator for brands.
Vidur Vyas, Marketing Director - Foods, PepsiCo India
In Vyas’ words, “Today consumers don’t buy ‘what’ (features, benefits and details) marketers do but they buy because ‘why’ (purpose, inspiration and belief) are marketers doing it. And having a noble cause brings that difference to our brand. We want to make people think about the cause.”
The Implementation
Apart from the roof of the noble cause of ‘Making India Heart Healthy’, this house model is supported by three pillar strategies namely: Code of Conduct, Community and Tools.
The first pillar, Code of Conduct, defines the way brand Quaker will be conducted in the market. The code of conduct that PepsiCo Foods followed while building Quaker Oats is to choose ‘Engaging Consumers’ over ‘Telling’ them what to do. Similarly, choosing ‘Honesty’ over ‘Hyperbole’ and Full Story over Half Truths.
The second pillar, i.e. ‘community’ means building a ‘community of consumers’ who will drive further the brand’s cultural relevance. In case of Quaker Oats, PepsiCo Foods started with building a consumer community on web through Facebook and through a dedicated portal www.goodmorningheart.com. The idea behind building a consumer community through the digital medium was to get people talking about the noble cause i.e. ‘Make India Heart Healthy’ and increase awareness about heart healthy habits among consumers. At present, the mentioned portal has about half a million registrations. Vyas says, “It is about trying to build a community. Half a million is not a large number, so the question is why are we investing in community of half a million people? This is because, this community will drive the cultural relevance about oats in the country. This is an integral part of our strategy.”
Quaker started building its community with 100 people on Facebook in 2006 and today the community has grown to half million. “Quaker used to sell just a few packs in 2006. But that’s how it is, you build a new business one step at a time… you don’t build it 100 steps at a time… no business is!”
Vyas also stresses that it is not just about creating a mass of consumers in the name of community. It is actually about bringing people together and make them aware about the cause, which in turn will drive cultural relevance for the brand. Vyas adds, “For instance: this year, Quaker has started a new campaign ‘Smart Heart Challenge – Adopt a Heart Healthy Lifestyle for 30 Days’. If you see the campaign, it does not say that you eat oats for 30 days and your cholesterol will be lower by this much. The campaign focuses on making lifestyle better and healthy, which includes having oats, a bit of exercise and some stress free time.”
The third pillar is the ‘Tools’ used to build the brands. “What tools you will be using? Anything new? Or are you going to use conventional tools in a way, which is unique and differentiating?” Vyas asks.
The Un-learning
Building relevance may need some un-learning. For PepsiCo Foods, this un-learning was threefold: Moving from ads to acts. So instead of just focusing on campaigns “We also want to do acts” that make a difference to the consumers. The second unlearning was to move away from the language of transaction to the language of action engagement and action. For instance, take the TV campaign of Quaker Oats: The TVC opened on the shot of an office where a couple of colleagues are having a conversation. The next shot cuts to a voice-over, along with a text message that announces that about 46.9 million Indians will suffer from some sort of cardio-vascular disorder by 2010. The next shot returns back to the office scene, where the colleagues are shocked at the revelation and start exercising immediately inside the office. Other employees soon join them and the TVC ends urging people to join to sign up on www.goodmorningheart.com. The website is created by the brand in tie-up with Apollo Hospitals, and helps consumers know more about heart, heart problems and how to keep their heart healthy. So instead of telling consumers that oats are healthy for the heart and that’s why you should buy it, Quaker has made an effort to first engage consumers with the cause of having a healthy lifestyle and heart and then in the process also talk about Quaker Oats.
Results
The biggest result, as per Vyas is that brand Quaker has won consumer trust. Apart from that, oats has also become the fastest growing branded breakfast sub-category in India and Quaker Oats is the leader in the category. Lured by the growth of the category, many players like Kelloggs (with its ‘Heart to Heart Oats’) Marico (with its Saffola Oats) have jumped in this space.
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