From crises to sweet success

Ravi Balakrishnan
Battles for market share, controversies over 'worms in chocolate', accusations of offensive advertising, sluggish FMCG markets, it would seem that Bharat Puri's stint as managing director of Cadbury India has prepared him for the worst the world can throw at him. As if on cue, Puri recently moved from the Cadbury India HQ in Mumbai to Singapore for a more regional assignment as commercial strategy director, Asia-Pacific. Puri left Asian Paints to join Cadbury as director of sales and marketing almost a decade ago. It was a time when India's traditionally strongest chocolate brand had received a sound drubbing in the marketplace, courtesy of Nestlé's Kit-Kat.

Getting share back and building excitement was a tough challenge, but probably the toughest problem was a highly publicised incident in which it was claimed that a batch of Cadbury's flagship brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM), was infested with worms. He believes the very fact that the issue is now history is a tribute to the spirit of Cadbury India."The sensible thing to do was to influence what we could. We spoke to consumers, changed packaging in a record 90 days and bounced back."

The results are pleasing too, higher consumer confidence levels than those recorded before the controversy. Still, many believe Cadbury's over-reliance on CDM was one of the main reasons that the problem was so potentially devastating in the first
place.

Even today, the variant accounts for a massive 30 per cent of Cadbury's chocolate portfolio. Puri argues that India is hardly the only market where CDM is most popular, it's the best selling brand in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Which is not to say the other brands are slackers, says Puri."We are one of the few guys with advantage brands, and no long trail of stuff that we are phasing out. 5-Star is our second largest, with 14 per cent share."

Recent launches like premium chocolate brand Temptations, snack brand Bytes and gifting range Celebrations have also been successful. However, while Cadbury's accounts for 75 per cent of the chocolate market, it accounts for only 10 per cent of the total market for sweet snacks in the country.

Among Puri's few unrealised ambitions for Cadbury India is getting the confectionery business going, in certain markets like Japan, it's mainly these brands that account for the bulk of the turnover. Yet, a year down the line, brands such as Dentene and Bubblicious have yet to gain a footing in the Indian confectionery landscape. Recent launches include the locallydeveloped Bilkul from Clorets and Halls Freshmint.

Cadbury also was among the first Indian companies to harness the power of modern trade and get into category captaincy at stores long before the term became fashionable, with staff being sent abroad for training. Puri's plans for Asia-Pacific are characteristically ambitious. The region's markets are at various stages of development, in Australia, Dairy Milk alone has 15 or 16 variants; Japan is stronger on confectionery; and Pakistan is currently growing faster than India, but following a very similar trajectory.

Puri says,"All we've done is replicated what we did in India. The advertising line in Pakistan currently is 'Khaane waalon ko khaane ka bahaana chaahiye' (People need an excuse to eat), and it's given us the same results it delivered in India, years ago. We are growing at over 40 per cent, and have a great team in place."