How a popular pasta brand made a mark in a loose pasta-dominated market

Background

Go to any kirana shop and you will see colorful ‘fryums’ that kids love. Stored in steel or plastic containers, it’s a very popular snack, especially for kids. In the last 10 years or so, a similar demand has been generated for pasta. Just like fryums, kirana owners stock loose pasta for parents to buy for their kids.

Problem

For a brand selling pasta, loose pasta is their biggest competition. Kiranas are hesitant to stock branded pasta due to the weak demand and higher purchase price for kirana owners. A well-known pasta brand came to us with the task of convincing kirana owners to stock the brand and influence their customers to choose the brand over the ‘cheaper’ loose option.

Solution

To begin with, we created the brand’s profile page on the Kirana Club App, which quickly got 3,000 followers. At this point, we proposed the brand to launch an offer - a Buy One Get One scheme for kirana to knock down the high purchase price entry barrier.

The offer was then communicated through an impactful ‘Kirana Display Campaign’ which received very good traction from kirana owners on the app.

To incentivize customers to buy branded over loose, we designed a pitch for the kirana owners to target mothers, urging them to buy pasta for regular use, not just for special occasions. The pitch also highlighted the nutritional value of loose pasta (100% maida) v/s the brand’s pasta (made from Durum Wheat).

A ‘Kirana Influencer Campaign’ was devised using the top 20 kirana influencers on the app who developed video content communicating this sales pitch to other Kirana owners and how they achieved success using the pitch in convincing the women shoppers.

Outcomes

The combination of a BOGO offer and a new sales pitch designed to target mothers shopping for regular-use pasta made a remarkable impact. The brand saw significant increase in the intent from kiranas to stock its various SKUs.