"The Serial Problems of Cereal in India"On the weekend analysts meet, I bumped into quite a few analysts and on my micro-interviews with them, I gathered some glaring examples of why one "Global strategy" concept is a misconception often for the changing landscapes like India.
The popular cereal brand across the globe, got launched in India in the mid 90s, the command came from the headquarters in the US. The company thought, India is US during the late 70's and early 80s trying to catch-up. Thus the strategy that was executed for US during 70's and 80's would be apt for India in 1990's ( First Flaw!).
The cereal wanted to replace the "Breakfast" for Indians. It couldn't, this is 2007 and still not a major % opts cereal, why?
I interviewed about 15 house wives from various states in India, and gathered some interesting facts about India and it's way of thinking.
1. Breakfast- In the south, the preferred breakfast was "Idly", this was considered the healthiest since it cooks on steam and has lots of fiber and easy to cook, the cost of making idly per family relatively in expensive, get the dough prepared and the breakfast for the rest of the week is ready to go, every morning you eat fresh and hot breakfast.
2. Eating boxed food as the first meal is not considered healthy, eating food served hot is considered healthy
3.Milk(in the form of Malted drinks, coffee,tea) are supplements, if breakfast is to be replaced by milk then a significant portion of energy is missing and it might lead to kids under performing in schools
4. Many mothers opined that cereal might be a good snack during the evening, when kids rush back from school, but the perceived "breakfast" cereal does not qualify to be good snack in the afternoon/evening!
Thus clearly the cereal company was loosing the ground. They should try to brand themselves as a healthy snack, that can be savored any time.
