To appeal to youth, Yippee launches four new variants

With a view to appeal to the youth, Sunfeast Yippee, the instant noodle brand from ITC, has unveiled its newest range of noodles called ‘My’. The new range will have four variants, which will be available on bigbasket exclusively for a period of one week, after which they will be available in retail stores nationwide.

Yippee recently joined the Rs 1,000-crore club and has a market share of 22% in the country today. But the leader, Nestle’s Maggi, controls more than 50% of the market.

The brand has launched the ‘My’ range in a bid to further cement its position in the instant noodles category and bring more consumers into its fold.

“With Yippee, we have focused mostly on children. We did that because we realised that there is a generation that has been brought up on Maggi and we wanted to create a new generation — a ‘Yippee generation’. Today, in kid’s TG, we are the most preferred brand. But we launched seven to eight years ago and now the ‘Yippee generation’ has grown up. So, it was necessary to have products in our portfolio that would appeal to them as well. And that is how the new variants came about,” said Hemant Malik, Divisional Chief Executive, Foods Division, ITC Ltd.

Commenting on why the brand chose to enter an exclusive partnership with bigbasket for the launch of this new range, Malik explained that e-commerce gives quick feedback.

“One of the great things about e-commerce is very quick feedback. If taste something, they post about it and that gives us, as brands, a lot of insight. Should we continue with all the four variants? Is something lacking in the products? Can we do a quick-fix? These are questions that get answered by the data that we get off of e-commerce sites. You can do a lot of research and we, indeed, do a lot of research but it will still be an artificial testing space. When a product goes live on e-commerce channel that is something entirely different,” added Malik.

Currently, about 1.5% of the brand’s overall revenues come from online sales and about 14% of their business from modern trade.

Marketing-wise too, the brand is shifting focus on digital. Malik mentioned that budgets are shifting from traditional media to digital when it comes to marketing not just for Yippee but for almost all the brands under ITC’s food division.

“Right now, our digital budget for Yippee is in single numbers but I would like it to be at least 10%,” said Malik.

The brand is developing a marketing plan for the new variants with their creative agency Ogilvy and the campaigns are expected to hit the market in a month’s time.

Commenting on their exclusive partnership with Sunfeast Yippee, Hari Menon, Co-founder and CEO, bigbasket said, “Product marketing is witnessing a paradigm shift in India. Many players are also launching their products online thanks to the surge in e-commerce in the country. We are delighted to be partnering with Sunfeast YiPPee! to launch the new variants of their widely loved instant noodles, exclusively on the bigbasket portal. It is a never-before offer which will not only catapult the popularity of the brand but also resonate with bigbasket's policy of bringing new and exciting offers to our customers. Our endeavour is to make customer experience better at every step and this partnership will do that and more.” 

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