INTRODUCTION

India is one of the fastest growing markets for chocolate in the world clocking almost 20% CAGR over the last five years. The current market size is more than a billion dollars. Cadbury India Ltd (or Mondelez India Ltd) boasts almost two thirds of market share – far ahead of its nearest competitors Nestle & Amul in chocolate segment.

Cadbury has been in India for more than 65 yrs now & that’s evident in the market penetration it enjoys vis-a-vis its competitors. With over 2500 distributors & over a million outlets selling its products, there is effectively no competition to it as far as distribution network is considered.

Earlier chocolates were considered luxury indulgence meant for upper & upper-middle class but with the creation of low price points by the manufacturers, the consumption in rural as well as semi urban areas have also picked up.

OVERVIEW

In India, chocolates are fast replacing desserts & sweets (as a gift-item) implying the fact that chocolate consumption has broken all the age barriers in India. It’s evident in the new marketing campaigns also which now target youth apart from children.

In the latest marketing strategy adopted by Dairy Milk India, a conspicuous change is the absence of any brand ambassadors in the online promotions. The animated chocolate variants themselves featuring across online channels.

The average number of likes+comments+posts figure of 2433 may seem very large but when we see the figures in the context of total no. of likes on the facebook page, which is 9.2 million+, the engagement level comes to mere 0.1%.  The below graphic shows the various parameters over the last month. Clearly the figures are far from flattering. The post interaction of just 0.09 % & service level of 20% leave much more to be desired.

Now let’s have a look at the buzz around the brand in the past four weeks. The new variants of Dairy Milk were launched sequentially starting from 13 April. The idea seems to sync the promotions with IPL which started on 16 April. Initially the response to IPL was cold & also the new flavors of Dairy Milk had not found much popularity. However as the IPL moved to India, the excitement grew & the new animated TV ads created quite a buzz which is reflected in the sharp rise of discussions around the brand across social media channels.

 Social media post analysis tool : myRosys

The level of discussions peaked on 16 & 17 May as the results of the general elections were announced. This rise could be attributed to efficient syncing of Dairy Milk’s Favorite Flavor elections with the general elections in the country & its vintage “Kuch meetha ho jaye” moment after victory.

PLATFORM WISE STRATEGY

1. Website:

Cadbury maintains a dedicated website for its product – http://cadburydairymilk.in/. The website is simple can be navigated mostly by scrolling only. A conscious effort to integrate different channels & devices from TV to Mobile to Social Media can be seen on website. The four flavors are distinctly & prominently displayed on the site. Clicking on any of the four icons leads to the related game, TV commercial, Social Buzz, recommendation of Mobile Apps & in the end a page to vote for the favorite flavor.

As can be seen in the below screen-shot, along with the link to tab to play, it also shows the leaderboard – weekly & monthly.

   This one shows the choice of downloading Cadbury Dairy Milk World App on iOS & Android devices. It integrates the message to buy new packs & spend more time with the app (win exciting prizes).

  

The screenshot below shows a perfect example of integration of website, social media & mobile apps. The strip on the right show the real time tweets on the brand’s twitter page while the frame in the middle promotes mobile apps.

The last page is a visual poll for your favorite flavor. You get the current standings as soon as you click on your choice. The company used these polls very effectively on digital media in sync with the national polls.

2. Facebook:

This is the medium with highest engagement level via likes, shares & comments. The facebook page of Cadbury Dairy Milk India boasts of 9.2m+ likes & 133k+ activities in the past week. The page is regularly updated with posts which combine the product promotion with contemporary topics & witty one-liners – which help in attracting fan engagement. In the following two sample-posts, we can clearly see the implementation of the same.

The first post which was about the favorite flavor elections of dairy milk chocolates coincided with the general election-results day. Similarly the latter post added a pinch of humor & coincided with the IPL playoffs

3. Twitter:

Compared to facebook, twitter is less popular in India & that is clearly reflected in engagement levels on Dairy Milk India twitter page as well. However with 21.5k+ followers, one would expect the page to create more engagement than the current single digit retweets & favorites.

The posts are similar to that of facebook except for the conspicuous addition of the tag #MyFavDairyMilk – a typical twitter concept. The page adds this hashtag to all the posts & invites followers to tweet about their favorite flavor using this tag.

4. YouTube:

Cadbury Dairy Milk India maintains a dedicated YouTube channel too. However the videos uploaded there are the same TV commercials – with the obvious added choice of comments.

Even then the heartening thing for Dairy Milk is that the commercials have received in excess of 250k views! At the end of the commercial, a toll free no. is flashed which can be called to vote for your favorite flavor.

5. Mobile Apps:

Cadbury has launched an app for Android & iOS platforms that packs theme based games around the four flavors viz. Crackle, Fruit & Nut, Regular & Fiery Almond. Below are the screenshots of games while playing on android device.

The point to be noted here is the repeated focus on incentivizing users to scan new dairy milk packs to see a magic trick, climb up the leaderboard with boosters or simply having more fun.

If you scan the logos of different flavors on dairy milk pack, you get three extra lives which ultimately help you score higher. The app allows the player to login directly with his/her facebook account & allows players to post scores on the networking site. The posts increase the visibility of the brand & app which in turn bring even higher engagement.

The app also promises exciting prizes to weekly winners.

COMPETITORS:

There is virtually little to no competition to Cadbury Dairy Milk as far as bar segment (pure chocolate) is concerned. Other FMCG giants such as Amul & Nestle have their products in this category but their market share fades in comparison to Dairy Milk. Also there is no conscious effort from the two companies to promote their products online.

Neither of the two have a dedicated website for chocolates and their social media pages are also poorly maintained with little activity.

EXPERT COMMENTS:

Cadbury is doing a fabulous job as far as promotion of Dairy Milk on online channels is concerned. They are way ahead of their competitors. The integration of promotions across channels & devices is seamless. Also the brand remains active & contemporary with its posts & provides enough incentives for customers to engage with the brand.

However we personally feel that they can do better with their twitter & YouTube accounts if they believe that their competition is with themselves. May be they can ask users to share their memorable Dairy Milk Stories with tags like #MyCDMStory & reward the best entries.

Also on YouTube channel, they can upload videos that tell the Cadbury Dairy Milk stories like how they arrived at a particular flavor or the whole story of chocolate manufacturing from raw material sourcing to retail delivery etc.

The communication on the social media platform appears little too one-way. The only effort to make it interactive is to ask the users about their favorite flavors. They could ask questions to their fans & reply to the discussions more often.

The marketing department should bring about more variety in their posts which are heavily focused on the four-flavors & the games right now.