We've upped our ad budgets by 30% YoY for FY24: Yogesh Tewari of RPSG Group

Having forayed into the snacking category with Too Yumm! in 2017 with Virat Kohli as the brand ambassador, and now with Varun Dhawan as the face of the Indian Namkeen category, the brand aims to increase its market share from the current 3-5% by leveraging both modern and traditional mediums to target specific cohorts and geographies, as per Yogesh Tewari, Vice-President-Marketing (FMCG Division), RP Sanjiv Goenka Group. 

In his interaction with BestMediaInfo.com, Tewari pointed out that since Too Yumm! continues to grow in high double-digits, this year the brand has already upped its budget for spending on advertisements by approximately 30% on a YoY basis.

“We are investing much more in digital YoY over TV, and for us, the core reason is that our distribution is still in the range of 3-4 lakh outlets and the universe out there is quite large and therefore using the mass media vehicles would eventually mean that there is a lot of wastage for us. Digital allows us to target specific cohorts and focus on certain critical geographies such as key metros and top states for us,” he stated.

He also pointed out that the brand leverages other mediums as well for their big campaigns or new launches to touch across multiple consumer touchpoints apart from television and digital platforms - including social media. 

“In the last two months, 75-80% of our media spend has been allocated on digital platforms, however, on a yearly basis the ad budget allocation is more balanced because we do have large campaigns running on television as well since our overall ad budget allocation would sum up to 40% digital and 60% television, but that skew continues to change,” he stated.

During IPL 2023, the brand also started running CTV campaigns on JioCinema, despite it being on the costlier side, with the aim to get incremental reach as CTV allows one to target the audience base that doesn’t stay glued to mobile screens during matches.

“Since advertising and distribution both go hand-in-hand, our presence at the moment is low in the rural areas or Bharat and the lower-tier towns as the focus is more on the top end that includes metros and Tier I and II towns, geographically states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, North-east, Delhi, etc. are strong areas for us currently,” he stated.

Although the brand has been associated with Indian cricketer Virat Kohli since 2017, it was in 2023 that actor Varun Dhawan was roped in as the brand ambassador for the launch of its Indian Namkeen range- which as per the brand is made without Palm Oil.

Commenting on what led to the roping in of Dhawan, Tewari stated that because the brand was expanding rapidly into newer categories such as Indian Namkeen - which caters to the wider set of public and the market is larger in size as compared to the western snacking one, the aim was to differentiate it within the brand portfolio and, therefore, the context to have more than one celebrity came in.

“Varun brings that quirkiness and energy along with the young vibe which fitted well into our Namkeen portfolio and therefore we roped him in to leverage the association for a large part of our portfolio. Moreover, Virat has been a part of our brand journey since inception and there’s a lot that the brand has gained from the association and he still continues to be a part of the brand family and we’ll still continue to leverage him,” he added.

He also shared that since Too Yumm! associated with Lucknow Super Giants as the Official Snacking Partner, the brand has already leveraged the same through a campaign which runs across various mediums.

“For mass scale mediums, this year we’ve placed our bet on JioCinema wherein two of our campaigns are currently running- one on Chips category with Virat and the other on Namkeen which features Varun, unlike last year when we betted big on Television, because we wanted more frequency which is often the result of right reach and impressions, since people generally watch IPL on-the-go along with other digital platforms and on-ground activities, especially in and around Lucknow,” he said.

Elaborating upon the brand’s target audience, Tewari shared the view that even though the overall category of snacking is consumed by various consumers across age groups, there are some skews prevalent in kids and younger adults. 

As a result, it is essential to leverage kids-related influencers and content along with toys, and bridge that segment with the younger adults and older teens who look at consuming spicy snacks as an option, when it comes to Too Yumm! Karare, he emphasised.

“Namkeens today have a slight skew amongst the older groups as well because they are also consumed heavily in homes as well, unlike others where there is out-of-home consumption and therefore a larger target audience, owing to which the brand’s media and creative perspective, Too Yumm! has a slightly older skew - for the western snacking is relatively stronger in modern trade channels than the traditional ones- the brand’s overall share in the market would anywhere be between 3-5%,” he added.

Since Too Yumm! happens to be a young, modern and disruptive brand as per Tewari, the aim is to give the consumers better choices in terms of both quality and flavour of products. Moreover, the brand’s USP, in Tewari’s opinion, is also built on the fact that the primary motivation for a consumer to consume snacks is to eat tasty snacks and that the brand adds the ‘guilt-free’ factor to it since its products have 30-35% less saturated fat.

“We always wanted to give some disruptive flavours to our consumers in addition to the regular Classic Salted or American chips, because consumers often look for novelty in the category of snacking. One of the biggest flavours for us in Multigrain chips continues to be Dahi Papdi Chaat, in terms of Karare we have Noodle Masala, Chilli Achaari, etc,” he added.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com