Eyes on Rs 1 lakh crore turnover, Amul will continue to spend 1% on marketing

Dairy major Amul will continue to spend 1% of its overall sales on marketing with a judicious mix of advertising on TV, print, outdoors, radio, digital. At present, the company has a turnover of Rs 52,000 crore, and it aims to double the turnover in the next five years.

Jayen Mehta

“We will continue to build the salience of our product categories, venture into newer products and markets to increase consumption of dairy products, gain volumes and market share. Amul brand turnover was Rs 52,000 crore in 2019-20 and we have plans to achieve Rs 1 lakh crore turnover in the next five years,” said Jayen Mehta, Senior General Manager (Planning and Marketing), Amul (GCMMF).

Amid the pandemic, Amul has built a strong social media connect with its handles on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. While it gets almost 10 million views daily on FB on its live recipe content, it plans to step up its content and communication in regional languages with having social media handles in languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Odia, Arabic, etc., to build stronger bonds with the customer in their own languages.

Mehta suggested brands to keep a pulse on the changing consumer needs and behaviour to be seen as 'pro-active' rather than 'reactive'.

Describing 2020 as one of its busiest years, he shared how it launched more than 60 products and 120 SKUs to date. It achieved 4X GRPs from the sponsorship of mythological serials Ramayan and Mahabharat, to be rated among the top five advertisers in India.

“The support we got from our agency and content partners has been phenomenal during the year. While most of them were/are still working from home, they tirelessly delivered their best despite all the constraints. Be it the un-ending stream of Amul topicals to creating eight new TVCs produced during four months of lockdown, creating pack designs and other creatives to support 60 new product launches, they were never found wanting. In fact, we ran a record 191 TV ad creatives on Ramayan and Mahabharat. Out of these, 120 were 'Amul Classics', the 30-60 years old ad creatives that were mastered for telecast on TV by our creative partners from 'home' studios in Mumbai when all professional studios were shut down,” he added.

He said the trend to include 'immunity', 'hygiene', 'safety' and 'quality' as a fulcrum of efforts by the discerning brands will continue in 2021.

The dairy category has witnessed a tectonic shift due to the pandemic and according to him, consumers have realised the importance of good quality branded dairy products that can be trusted.

The year 2020 tested the strength and resilience of the cooperative dairy industry to the fullest.  There was a need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of range of essential dairy products across the country during the lockdown.

According to Mehta, there has been a shift from loose to packaged, unbranded to branded, from commodity to brand and from local/regional brand to trustworthy national brands.

He added, “We have witnessed an increase in demand for our packed fresh milk, buttermilk, curd, paneer, ghee, sweets, etc., across all markets, urban and rural, across India. Given the size of unorganised market of about Rs 4 lakh crore, even a small 10% shift from loose to packed branded quality dairy products like ours can result in a huge volume and value growth.  It is said it takes 60 days to form a habit. We sensed this from the early days of the lockdown and invested in our advertising, brand communication and availability by ramping up distribution up to small towns with 10,000 population; increasing our capacity of manufacturing small packs and expanding into new markets for fresh products such as milk, curd, buttermilk, sweets.”

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