CADBURY UNITY : CRACKING THE 4Ps of MARKETING

If you are in #India, I am sure you must have seen the new launch from #Mondelez India - Cadbury Unity Bar to celebrate India's 2019 Independence Day.

                              

To me, what was impressive was how #Cadbury was able to crack all the 4Ps of #Marketing in a brilliant way:

Product:

• The product is an interesting blend of milk, dark and white chocolate signifying the diversity of India and the relevance of the product to celebrate the occasion is perfect.
• The brand name chosen is apt for the occasion – Unity. Notice how the last three letters in the word Unity on the pack are the three colours of the three chocolates that have been put together.
• The packaging shows people of different religion, region and gender joining hands and it also looks like the letter ‘U’ of Unity. 

Price:

• The chocolate bar has been priced at an odd price point of INR 73. Why? Simply because it is the 73rd year of India’s independence so such an odd price point is justified.
• At a price point of INR 73 for a 130g bar, the chocolate is priced at INR 561 per kg, which is higher than the average price of chocolates in the country. This means that it gives a healthy margin to Cadbury with every bar that they sell.

Promotion:

•  Cadbury surprised everyone by taking the front page of The Economic Times editions and different cities and putting out the headline in a language that is not spoken in that city. So, the Delhi edition had a Telugu headline and the Bengaluru edition had a Marathi headline.
• For a few seconds the reader thought that the advertiser made a mistake, but if you read further, the ad said ‘The headline above is not a misprint. It is in Telugu (or whichever language the headline was in) and it says – Sweet things happen, when we unite.
• This unique approach led to a social media frenzy and people were talking about the ad, sharing it, commenting on it, thereby generating enough earned media for the launch.

Place:

• Cadbury Unity bars were being sold exclusively on Flipkart as limited editions. I am not surprised because blending three different chocolates in a single bar can be done only on a small scale and hence it is perfect to do Limited Editions.
• By calling out ‘Limited Edition’, Cadbury was driving the scarcity mindset and people who would want to experience this unique chocolate would not wait and rush to place their orders.
• By selling it only through an e-commerce player like Flipkart, Cadbury was able to achieve two things:
•  It did not have to incur the heavy logistics in distributing the chocolates across multiple retail outlets across the country. They could work this easily with a single partner – Flipkart.
• Pushing people to come to Flipkart to place orders was a great way to change purchase behaviour and get more people to become comfortable in buying chocolates online, which has a much lower penetration on e-commerce than other food categories.
• The product was sent out to consumers in a nicely gifted box along with a special letter, taking the consumer experience to the next level.

While the launch on its own isn’t going to shift the needle of the top line for Cadbury, but it surely will drive its brand equity and salience significantly and will have a much bigger impact on the mother brand Cadbury because of all the buzz, the PR and the earned media. I am contributing to that earned media as well by writing this article!

If you are a marketing student, you can easily put this one as a great case study in brands that have used the fundamentals of Marketing to their advantage and leveraged Philip Kotler’s 4Ps to their advantage. 

Oh, by the way, did I mention that I have had a love-hate relationship with Cadbury over the years. I did my summer internship with Cadbury back in 2003 and then when I was doing marketing for chocolates for Nestle, Cadbury was our competitor and arch rival 😊.

Let me know what you think of this analysis in the comments section.

Marketing with Ps or Marketing with a C?

Pick up any marketing book and chances are, that what Philip Kotler had proposed in his marketing theories is what everyone else is also propagating. What that means is that every book/every author/every marketer will tell you about the importance of the four Ps and how it still holds relevance even after so many years. 

I also entered the world of marketing with the same belief but over the years, my thinking and belief has changed and evolved. While I do not negate the importance of these four Ps, one important thing that no marketing book or theory tells you is about the importance of a C in between all these Ps. The C that I am talking about is that of CONVICTION. 

Yes my dear friends, Conviction is as important an element of marketing as any other. If you are not convinced about what you are doing then no amount of marketing can help you to see success, whether it is a product innovation, a consumer promotion or a campaign for your brand. 

When you think of conviction, the first name that comes to mind is that of Steve Jobs. He showed lot of conviction in the product idea and design that he believed in. Even when no one could fathom the existence of things like the iPod, iPad and the iPhone, he persisted with his conviction, made others believe in it and turned Apple into the success that it is. 

The dream of the Wright brothers to fly and give this world a machine that can take you in the air was built on the solid pillar of conviction. So was every other product innovation that change the dynamics of the market. 

While consumers and markets may or may not give you insights, directions and feedback, it is your own conviction that will help you in moving forward your brand and your market share. But remember conviction does not come alone. With conviction, you need lot of patience and the ability to be challenged and yet hold your ground. There will always be people who will try to prove what you are doing as a failure or as something that is not working and that is when the conviction should not waver and rather come out much stronger to tone down all such doubting critics. That is when you will stand tall and be seen as someone who delivers whatever be the circumstances. 

So guys, go out there with complete conviction and make a success of whatever you are working on!