Majority of individuals in today’s time indulge in eating fried and unhealthy snacks, so to fill this gap among people and give them the same taste with baked snacks, with flavors for almost every palate, Too Yumm! satisfies hunger pangs, with no compromises on your health. Name your favorite cuisine and Too Yumm! brings you a healthy and yummy version.
With an emphasis on health and without any compromise on taste, the brand has scored a sixer with its latest campaign aptly tagged as ‘Har Craving Ka Jawaab’ starring Virat Kohli. The 4 part ad campaign reveals India’s favourite flavors according to Virat Kohli – Noodle Masala, DahiPapdiChaat, Chilli Chataka and Chilli Achaari.
In a conversation with Medianews4u, Anupam Bokey, CMO Guiltfree Industries Ltd, RPSG FMCG spoke about the growth and how Too Yumm! as a brand has evolved and much more.
Read on.
How tough was it to get into a market which is already been dominated by other big brands, which offer a longer shelf life?
There are many brands which offer the same thing, perhaps a different quantity of regionalised flavour, but if you try to marry that with the trend that you see and the ones that are the massive trends of today, people are more health conscious, they are seeking the right information and want to eat right.
When all this is happening, you still don’t want to give away your snack because you have a very strong appetite for that. There aren’t any healthy snacking brands; there are a lot of brands that have tried in the past, but they went so far ahead on the health dimension and priced them so expensive, that it went out of reach for the mass consumers.
This is where a premium brand in terms of how much we give versus the other competitors, the challenges were there, but the opportunities were there as well, which nobody was really catering to. It also becomes for a mainstream brand which might be a fried snack to suddenly turn into a baked snack, the focus doesn’t become because the core of the brand still remains of rights and our core is health and baked. So I think that brings the requisite focus that is required to stay consistently building on that aspect, other brands might do it on and off but they can’t do it consistently, because if you’re doing bake today, what is your core?The core is fried. When you try to do that, the brand proposition gets fragmented and consumer also gets confused.
But with Too Yumm!consumers know it’s health and health only, so there is no scope for confusion and that’s why it has a better chance of success.
How are you catering to different age categories that have such a diverse taste?
Snacking is consumed by everybody and in different proportions, the demographic of the country is such that 15 to 35 is the largest group and are also very experimental. If you look at any brand which has been there for decades you will see the older audience are more loyal to it, but the younger audience are very experimental. So, we cater to the younger audience, because of the same reasons, they have the appetite to try something new that gives a better chance for trial of Too Yumm! versus some of the other brands which have been there for a long time.
I think our role would be to go lower in age group because that’s a better thing, rather than to go higher and also, it’s a western snack on the go consumption occasion and the younger group is going out more than the older group. We still see our Makhaanasgetting consumed a whole lot by the elder people, but that is for health reasons and these guys want those mini meals, small packets on the go and that’s why because of the demography because of their lifestyle, that age group remains the largest consumer.
What are your plans for linear versus nonlinear content and the digital strategy for this campaign?
We do have a very strong digital presence and strong social handles primarily on Facebook, because of the TG focus, there are a lot of youngsters who are not really watching TV, so just to cater to them we use digital as well. We also use TV for mass awareness because it’s low price point widely distributed categories so you can do without TV and that still remains the most efficient reach in terms of cost.
But digital is where we build our engagement the younger audiences are far more aware, far more inquisitive, far more digitally savvy to look for more content around the brand and one when you have a celebrity endorser like Virat Kohli it actually helps.
Every new initiative that we do the first communication out is from Virat Kohli and all his social handles, with acumulative fan following of 85 million that helps and we propagate it and it also brings a lot of credibility when he’s talking about it.
How did Virat Kohli as a celebrity endorser came on board?
So I think it’s again, what fitted the requirement. Typically when you create a new brand to get noticed, you need a celebrity that helps you and to have some association and those who are too young coming from established organization can become a big challenge and we wanted to use a fitness endorser who could create credibility for Too Yumm!.
Virat Kohli was the obvious choice, the second is that typically brands use different film celebrities in different regions, because a bollywood celebrity has little relevance down south and in India, cricket is a religion that cuts across the country and Virat is equally relevant, so somebody in Chennai and Bangalore and Hyderabad as is to Delhi, Mumbai, and hence a one celebrity can drive your communication across and I think cricket because of its power, and cricket happens 365 days in a year, so it’s more visible than any Bollywood film or whatever you can think about. I think on many fronts, you should use a sporting celebrity which cuts across the region.
The flavours that have been introduced now is something that kids are not much aware about, kids are used to having flavours that are mild, so how are you tackling that and do you have specific set of flavours that caters primarily to kids?
This campaign and these viewers primary target 52 or 35 year old because that’s the demographic and those are the highest consumption and you’re absolutely right these flavours may not attract the kids as much. That’s why I was saying we have different flavours and different products in terms of the shape and size and the bite and texture and the flavours and it’s all kids focused which creates that aura and what kids usually love.
How has your recent integration with Amazon Prime Video’s Inside Edge been?
Again, around cricket, health, fitness discipline all of these are the core aspects of our brand and early on we identified the genres where the TG goes and spends time is sports, travel, music, comedy are the genres that we’ve identified and so we see whether there is anything reasonable and suitable coming in that space and that’s the only thing that we pursue.
So the first integration that we did was with Love OK Please created by MX Player because they were like 10 youngsters going and discovering themselves, so the TG was right travel as an aspect you always have a binge accompany snacks so the brand fitted very well. The same is true in sports and cricket and because of a participation in IPL, and we benefited significantly.
Inside Edge brings in that extra twist of drama to the whole thing, but it’s the sport and the first season was very successful I think it won many awards. So we were looking for Inside Edge2 to come and it got delayed by almost a year and a half and this association was struck when Inside Edge2 was first announced almost one and a half, two years back fully aligned to a strategy of the right genre that we want to associate with. So this was just right for us and when we do integration, and it’s still a new brand, the journey is only two and a half years and we want the brand to become a part of the story. So if you have seen Inside Edge2 it’s particularly in the episode three, some people thought that Too Yumm! was an imaginary brand and only the Indian audience knew about Too Yumm!
It was not disrupting the viewing experience and we have had multiple conversations in how we want the brand to be integrated is how it should and we have managed to get those moments right and but it does not disrupt your viewing experience.
What are your future plans for Too Yumm!?
I’m just excited to take the brand forward and there’s a lot of things happening and as a marketer, it just gives you so much more to play with and especially if most of the key drivers of the brand are in place. There are a lot of extension opportunities where we can still differentiate on health and I think the health trend is not just for snacking, it’s for everything you know, on fitness, the attire, the sporting industry, the apps that you use the trackers that you have, people are going crazy. The gym memberships and the proliferation of gyms that you see, healthy is really the intake and if you have a brand who’s core has established as one of the strongest helping, you need to figure out how to leverage it across different so there is working play. It’s a little premature, but it’s a very powerful space and I think that we managed to do that