Swaminathan Balasubramanian
Ripple tea is the flagship brand of the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited (KDHP), a Tata Global Beverages company. The Indian tea manufacturing brand from Munnar, Kerala plans any mar-com activities that will interest the home-makers and tea-masters in neighborhood tea-shops.
“Indian tea consumption pattern is different in various places. The colour, aroma, preparation differs from place to place. The tea which is consumed in Southern part of India is completely different from its counterpart in other parts of India”, says, Amir Abbas Khan, Head, Marketing and sales Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company (KDHP) .
Amongst all their product variants, green tea has gained momentum, thanks to the health consciousness among consumers. “We are trying to innovate how to make it tastier by bringing ingredients like lime, rose, jasmine and make green-tea drinking interesting as most of the time, taste is not concentrated much”, he says.
Understanding Home-Makers’ Purchase pattern and attracting Tea-Masters:
Ripple tea also had undergone Central Location Tests, among home-makers on their purchase pattern, behaviour in a store, preference in tea, method of making recently. Some of the in-store activities of the brand included free sampling of the tea as a product or a small kiosk is made in a store and fresh tea is prepared and given to the consumers entering the store. Not less than 20% of the entire budget is spent on in-store activities.
On the institutional selling , Ripple feels the ‘tea-masters’ in various tea shops are influencer and reach out to them through coupon, credit-points, T-shirts and more. “We will try encouraging everyone in our value chain- be it super-stockist, stockist or retailers through our schemes.”, Abbas says further adding that some of the key points that thrill the customers include price, bundling offers and discounts. “We had also reinvented our packaging and revamped to poly-pack and the colour of the package is pleasant and made attractive for the customers”, he further said.
Sumathi M Chari, Senior Partner, PRHUB, the Integrated communication firm, speaking on the preferred medium of approach, says, “It is integral for brands to have an omni-channel marketing strategy today that allows them to be visible and promote themselves across relevant media channels and platforms. The customer touch points are vast and diverse for any brand and no brand really understands where and what really influence or trigger a customer. Needless to say, for B2C brands, the digital and social media is inevitable in their advertising plan.” She also says brands should be able to measure tangible outcomes of a campaign but one also needs to keep in mind that in a cluttered environment, the campaign at first needs to be able to garner attention and attract participation, to be able to emerge successful and drive the desired outcomes
The nine-year-old brand Ripple has various ingredients which is majorly consumed by their customers in South India.
Making Munnar An Experience:
Ripple has five stores in various hot spots of Munnar, predominantly a tourist-destination. Speaking on the reason to retail in a tourist destination, Abbas says Munnar as a place attracts tourists across the country and sometimes from other places of the world. The stores of size of minimum Thousand square feet has designs in store that speaks on the history of tea, journey of tea from plantation to cup, about the vicinity and more. “Everyone who visits Munnar want to return with a memory. Unlike the routine tea-selling booths in the high-way which is driven by tour guides, this make Munnar connect with ripple as a brand. Thanks to our online sale, customers can buy online after visiting the stores”, Abbas concluded.
