A

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................ 2
Value opportunity and discovery................................................................................ 2
A.

Customer and Industry research.......................................................................2

B.

Market segmentation and selection..................................................................2

C. Branding affirmation and positioning................................................................3

D. Competitive positioning.................................................................................... 3
Value creation............................................................................................................. 4
A.

Business Plan.................................................................................................... 4

B.

Offer design and creation..................................................................................4

C. Life cycle planning............................................................................................ 5

D. Go to market planning...................................................................................... 5
E.

Innovation and differentiation...........................................................................5

Value communication................................................................................................. 5
A.

Media and influencer out reach.........................................................................5

B.

Thought leadership development.....................................................................6

C. Industry segment communication.....................................................................6

Value selling............................................................................................................... 6
Value recognition........................................................................................................ 6
A.

Experience management..................................................................................7

B.

Customer council and communities..................................................................7

Social Media............................................................................................................... 7
Technology................................................................................................................. 7
Metrics........................................................................................................................ 7
Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 8
References.................................................................................................................. 8

Introduction
Amul, meaning priceless in sankrit, is Indias most trusted Brand in diary product
with turnover of $2.5bn. The said Brand links the old and new India via Gandhian
philosophy co-operative rural villages with todays emerging 21 st century economic
powerhouse. Formed in 1946, it is a Brand managed by the Gujarat Co-operative
Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today is jointly owned by 3M milk

The Amul Girl, its cartoon mascot, is Indias most famous advertising mascot and has helped turned the comp

producers in Gujarat.
Lets understand how its marketing strategy fits in the framework of what we
studied in the class.

Value opportunity and discovery

A. Customer and Industry research
Dairy is the top ranking commodity in India and the dairy sector is about US 1.5M
and is growing at 5M tons per annum over the next 15 years. The sector is highly
competitive with a lot of regional players and the dairy products have a short shell
life. The customers are very choosey and very sensitive to price and quality.

B. Market segmentation and selection

Hindi speaking belt was a critical segment for Amul for a very long time. Hence
most of its products are targeted for this segment. When the Brand was launched,
the company had taken a conscious decision to be within the northwest region of
India. Only once achieving sufficiency in these regions, did they expand their
operations to South since it had a major regional competitor named Nandini of
Karnataka. Within the geographical/ demographic segments, Amul had further subsegments as per psychology i.e. Kids, Women, Calorie conscious, Youth and Health
conscious. Amul also had industry based market segments i.e. Milk and Butter/
Cheese/ Ghee.
Amul started to diversify only once India achieved sufficiency in Milk production,
thus, keeping the Indian values intact. No-wonder the Brand command huge respect
in India and is also the most trusted brand in Asia. Only recently, has it diversified
into overseas markets. The Brand target initially was low and middle income people
with most its products priced accordingly and catered to regional and Indian
audience. Later on with increase in the per capita income of the Indian consumers,
it incorporated premium products and diversified into non-Indian segments like
Pizza, cold drinks and cheese amongst others.

The persona that Amul used to market its product has

evolved with changing women role in the country.

C.

B
r
a
n
d
ing affirmation and positioning

The brand is so strong and enjoy so much trust that it has become a family brand
in India. It represents the following three attributes (Meta values): Trust, Indianness
and Quality. Its logo Taste of India along with its bubbly girl as a mascot are the
USP. The print advertising that the company uses to be in visibility is consistent with
the logo and mascot with pun comments on current issues of the country meaning
that the advertising strategy of Amul is in line with branding strategy of Amul. Every
Amul stores displays Mahatma Gandhis pic re-affirming its co-operative society

business model invented by Gandhi.

D. Competitive positioning

Low

Price

Amul has a number of competitors ranging from local to national and international
High
level for all its products. Till date, Amul Butter is the No 1 Brand in the butter
category in. Amul
India. Amul has
different
competitors in different segments.
. Mother
Dairy
. Britannia

. Kwality

. Cadbury

The perceptual map gives the position of Amul with respect to its competitors.
. HUL

. Mahananda

. Nestle

Quality

. Vadilal

Low

As can be seen in the map above, in the price range, Amul has Britannia and Vadilal
as competitors: Amul prices are reasonable. In the Quality range, Amul has a lot of
competitors: HUL, Cadbury, Nestle and HUL. Amul is able to be the most trusted
brand leveraging on its Brand Value Preposition .i.e. Indianness, Quality and Trust.
Secondary attributes like availability and freedom quite accurately resonates the
brand. The Amul print advertising is consistent and align with the mission of the
Amul company. The Amul mascot ads with a mocking comment on the current issue
going on in the country affirms Amuls image of being innovative.

Value creation
A. Business Plan
Amuls parent company GCMMF is built on a unique business model which involved more than 16K village co-

Later on, once India achieved sufficiency in milk production, the company started to
export milk to other countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius, China etc. The
company business model was heavily dependent on the local network of milk
distributors since poor farmers did not have enough money to travel and sell a
perishable product like milk to far off places. Thus, the company was able to save
on the huge money it would had to shell out in-case it had to source milk from a
diary. The average milk intake from a farmer is just 3 litres per day and the farmer
decides the volume. Since the volume of farmers is so huge, even if some farmers
fail to provide milk on certain days the company could easily meet its demand. The
business model was meant to be a win-win prepositions for all the stakeholders
involved. More than the business model, GCMMF is an institution by itself, formed by
the farmers to protect their interest from price exploitation by retailors.

B. Offer design and creation

Amul, Branded House, has a strong product portfolio. The portfolio consist of
following brands:
Amul Milk, Amul bread spreads, Amul Cheese, Amul Milk, Amul Kool and its variants,
Amul pro, Amul ice cream, Amul Paneer, Amul Dahi, Amul Ghee, Amul Milk powders,
Amul Nutramul, Amul mithai mate, Amul chocolates, Amul butter milk, Amul

chocolate, Amul Basundi, Milk Powders, Malai Paneer, Amul skrikhand, Kool Caf,
Amul Masti Chaas, amongst others.
Amul has some of the similar products in its portfolio that lead to cannibalization of
its sales but the Brand is not much affected by it since it aims to be a Family Brand
and want to cover maximum audience in order defend itself from competitors .e.g.
Amul Kool vs Amul Nutramul, Milk Drinks, Amul cheese spread vs Amul processed
spread, SAGAR vs Amulya. Amul offers a mix of both standard and customized
products. Apart from dairy products, Amul has started to diversify into non-dairy
products too i.e. Pizza, snacks, instant food, Vegs oils, etc

C. Life cycle planning

Amul has a sizable number of products in its portfolio. The chart below, depicts the
life cycle of its few products.
Bread spread
Amul Nutramul, cheese, Spray,
Chocolate Milk, Kool Koho, Amul
Kool Thandia, Amul Chocolate,
Cooking Butter, Amul Pizza,
Narmada Neer

Amul Mithai mate, milk

powder, Amul Dahi,
Buttermilk, Amul Kool, Amul
Kool flavored bottle, Amul
Lassi milk, Basundi, Amul
Malai Paneer, Amul Milk,

Amul Butter,
Amul Milk

Amul Shakti,
Jaldara

Though Amul Butter is at the maturity stage, it still is the Number 1 Brand in the
Butter/ Ghee/ Cheese segment. Its commands a market share of more than 80%,
even though, products in the Maturity stage start to lose its market charm.

D. Go to market planning
Amul offers a range of products in various categories like ice- cream, milk powders,
Lassi, Cheese, Mithai, Pizza etc. The prices of fresh products with short shell life is
reasonable, linked with the per capita income of middle class consumers in India.

E. Innovation and differentiation

Amul keeps on innovating and adding new products in its portfolio, in line, with ever
evolving consumer taste. One of the strategies it uses is have rotation plan every 34 years with slight variation in product taste. Latest addition is Amuls ATM machine
that gives 300 ml pouch of fresh milk in 0.17 dollars. Amul Parlor were launched in
2002 and contributed to 3% of Amuls total turnover by 2009 (approx. 5000 in
number now). Ever holiday season, a new product or a flavor in existing variety of
product is added. Quality, Indianness and reasonable Pricing are the attributes by
which Amul differentiates itself from its consumers. The trust that Amul enjoys
among its consumers is based on its business model. In spite of immense
competition, the Brand is able to survive and thrive because of its Glocalization
reach of its business model. The business model also acts as an entry barrier for its
competitors. Amul recently has undertaken itself for strategic partnerships and
signed an agreement with WALMART to stock its shelves with Amul products. It has
also tied up with Glaxo to sell baby products.

Value communication
A. Media and influencer out reach
The Media used was television and billboard ads initially. Later-on, Amul
incorporated social media to reach its customers. The Amul website had a section
named Cricket, dedicated for cricket crazy fans which depicted world cricket
rankings. Needless to say, India is a cricket crazy country.
Amul was also the sponsor for the following:
IPL matches
London Olympics official sponsors of Indian teams; Netherlands Cricket Team in
World Cup 2011
Amul Master chef and Amul Star voice of India
Amul Maharani contest 2009
Amul Chef of the Year
Food Festival 2009
Advertising partners for Formula 1
Amul food festival
Amul sponsored a singing competition Amul Star Voice of India
The IPL online across both boxtv.com & youtube.com/indiatimes combined recorded
a 52% growth viewership over 2012. What was interesting was Amuls was on its
toes to keep pace with IPL matches rolling out witty ads in less than a day and
having them on its billboards the very next day. The likes on the facebook page of
these ads conveyed the reach and effectiveness of Amuls marketing strategies.

B. Thought leadership development

India is the land with more than 1600 languages with Hindi being the official
language. The Utterly Butterly Amul ads were also designed in regional languages
with English translations for urban cities. All the ads conveyed the same pun and
were consistency. Further, some ads captured the region-specific current issue to
create more visibility and customer intimacy.

C. Industry segment communication

Since the ads were designed to capture the hot selling current issue, it catered to
most of the industry segment after-all who does not want to be up-to-date. During
IPL season, ads centered around cricket whereas during election season, they
centered on politicians.

Value selling
Amul used catchy and innovative ads to sells its products. The Amul girl always
used pun to comment on latest news or current events. The ads conveyed the
Indian values along with creating awareness about the issue the country was facing.
Since most of the billboards ads were positioned on major highways, it increased
the visibility for Amul and generated wide opinions and emotions among publics.
Amul ads were the talking points for news reporters, politicians, student community,
homemakers etc. Major activity of communication is done through its advocacy and

promotional films. Amul has been consistent in its advertising campaign using the
tag line The Taste of India and Amul Girl in all its ads till date. The metrics of
these advertisement campaign tells us why huge marketing budget, ad campaign
not always necessary to sell your product or build a trusted Brand. Amuls
advertising strategy is in line with the concept of Umbrella Branding. This saves the
company the cost of creating a new advertisement for each of its product. What is
surprising is that its advertising budget is less than 1% of its turnover. Amul quality
products are its advertisement. Considering the cost, the reach of Amuls ads is very
high. Amul used inbound marketing advertisements to create awareness about its
Brand via its advertisement. Though inbound marketing was invented by Brian
Halligan and Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot, S ylvester daCunha (the brain behind the
creation of Amul girl) used these techniques in a raw market in 1960s to create Brand
awareness for Amul.

Value recognition
A. Experience management
In 2013, one of Amuls consumer from Gujarat uploaded a facebook video of
contaminated milk packet. The video went viral inviting comments from all sections
of society including the Food and Drug Association in India. Amul took instant
redressal measures which included sending its quality inspector to the victims
place and finding the root cause of the problem. On finding that the milk packet was
well beyond its expiry date, Amul made an announcement, in interest of its
consumers, on its website including leading newspapers and magazine, to take note
of expiry date of short shell life products. Thus, Amul was able to save its Brand
from contamination as well as educate its consumers about the shell life of
perishable products.

B. Customer council and communities

Amul has a customer grievance cell online as well as offline. The cell assures
redressal of customer complain and grievance within a span of 48 hrs. Amul has a
facebook page and twitter page. Both are used as a medium to interact with its
consumers and well as to know how the product is faring in the market.

Social Media
Amul used the social media to market its products via s Utterly Butterly Amul ads.
There were pages on Facebook, twitter and orkut. People were joining, liking and
commenting on its ads on these portals. It used Youtube advertising for first time in
2015 to create a 3 min video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_I1omigDRU. Most of the
Brand awareness for Amul is done through earned media. Private Blogs, Fb and

twitter comments on Amuls witty ads create quite a sensation in the country. The
ads created Epiphany, Awareness and Interest which brought the people to the
stores to buy Amul. The quality at reasonable price created confidence and loyalty
among its consumers. No wonder, Amul had a very high Customer Life Time Value
since its customers were loyal across generations.

Technology
The technology used to promote the Brand was internet (Amul website) and TV.
Youtube, facebook, orkut, linkedin, etc were used to build Amul ads fan base.

Metrics
Some major metrics which convey the effectiveness of Amuls Utterly Butterly ads:
Social media

14 brand post
19K total engagement on brand post
1,361engagement/ post
1.2M Fan page
762 Avg. people talking about this (PTAT)
0.1% PTAT as % of Fans
1.5% Engagement as % of Fans
Most engaging content type is photos Utterly buttery Amul girl ads
Survey

In the survey conducted over 9 markets, in the age group of 15 to 64 years and
covered 12 product and services categories - ranked Amul as Number 1 Brand
amongst 1000 Brands in Asia

Conclusion
The above parameter analysis resonates that to be a strong Brand, a company
needs to have a strong business model, earn trust of people by being consistent
with its missions and attributes for which it stands for. It does not always need a
huge marketing budget to communicate with its customers and build customer
loyalty.
By applying the learnings from the class, I would recommended the following to
Amul for its international expansion:
Have a digital marketing budget for foray in the international markets
Personas needs to be as per the local international markets
Creating ads as per the ties of India and that of international market. E.g. Ads
highlighting President Obama visit to India
Partner with major players like Targets, Costco, Whole Foods to have a demarcated
place with Amul branded products to increase visibility of the brand.

References

Class room readings and slides of Prof. Hurley

http://www.limcabookofrecords.in/recordDetail.aspx?rid=388
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6f5d46cc-d189-11e1-bb8200144feabdc0.html#axzz3TvOaYMPd
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amul-is-taste-of-india-says-survey107091201081_1.html
Social media report on Amul brand by Simply Measured
indiainfoline.com, "AMUL Most Trusted among Indias Food & Beverage Brands"
http://www.theglobaljournals.com/ijar/file.php?
val=February_2014_1391259424_a81fc_177.pdf
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/keyword/amul/recent/5
http://www.icmrindia.org/free%20resources/casestudies/amul1.htm
http://www.india.com/topic/Amul.html
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amul-india-s-most-trusted-foodbeverage-brand-report 113021300399_1.html
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amul-to-be-first-dairy-firm-to-export-torussia-114122400485_1.html
http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/10/amul-sustainability-india
http://www.financialexpress.com/article/companies/as-competition-intensifies-amul-steps-upefforts-to-remain-the-taste-of-india/23973/
http://www.cricketcountry.com/tag/amul-ads
http://www.impactonnet.com/How-Amul-became-an-Indian-family-brand
http://www.amul.com/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/quickstir/entertainment/26-Impressive-BollywoodInspired-Amul-Ads/quickstirshow/42887461.cms
http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/Features/Jest-like-that-Girl-with-the-Amultattoo/Article1-881561.aspx
http://www.amul.com/
www.indiandiary.com
http://www.indianfoodindustry.net/