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by Prasanna Perera, Marketing and Management Consultant, Chartered Marketer, CIM, UK

Tune into the mass media or take a drive down a busy highway and you will observe a different kind of warfare i.e. marketing warfare. Some wars are between local brands, whilst others are between local-foreign and even foreign-foreign brands. In this brief article, I will endeavour to outline some of these brand warfare and explain the thinking behind them.

Warfare No 1 - Anchor Power Malt vs Nestomalt

This brand warfare hogged the limelight for the past two months and continues to do so at present. Nestomalt marketed by Nestle, is a brand well established in the market and enjoyed a leadership position Malted milks. Prior to Anchor Power Malt being introduced, Nestomalt competed with brands such as Horlicks and Viva.

With the entry of Anchor Power Malt the entire malted food category was reenergised. Obviously, Malted milk must be a product category that is quite large. This can be judged by the intensity of the Power Malt campaign.

Anchor Power Malt by linking the Anchor brand, was hoping to build on the brand equity. Anchor is a well established brand name and by extending the brand into a new category it could be established quite quickly and cost efficiently.

The brand positioning of Anchor Power Malt was "The only complete malted food drink." Hence, the positioning was cleverly engineered into a malted food category as opposed to a malted milk. To justify the positioning, claims of different vitamin fortifications were made.

It could be easily forecasted that a considerable sum of money would have been spent specially on the marketing communication activities, in order to establish Anchor Power Malt. The TV channels, radio networks and newspapers were filled with communication messages, supported by a very vigorous point of sales campaign utilizing posters, shelf strips and danglers. On certain days, certain busy highways were decorated with Power Malt POS material.

After a few weeks Anchor Power Malt being launched we observed the Nestomalt reply. Nestomalt attempted to reassert themselves, as the market leader in Malted Milk. The positioning platform "was Nestomalt - for energy, power and nutrition" A mass scale postering campaign, supported by heavy media advertising was observed. To augment the mass media campaign a consumer promotion was also implemented followed by the launch of a smaller pack at Rs. 10.

Challenger strategy

When one analyses the Malted Milk war, it is clear that Anchor Power Malt entered the market to challenge the leadership position of Nestomalt. Hence, Anchor Power Malt could be termed as a "Market Challenger". The challenger strategy was head-on, with the objective of creating maximum damage. (Frontal attack with all marketing mix elements firing). In addition to the frontal attack, a segmental attack too was carried out, by targeting the "Malted Food" segment. Nestomalt as the market leader, was forced to defend its market position. (Sometimes defence is the best form of attack). The Nestomalt marketing strategy could be termed as "Position defence", which means to defend market share and avoid/minimise the loss of share.

With the Anchor Power Malt and Nestomalt war hogging the limelight, Horlicks, which is a middle ranking brand, also made its presence felt. Horlicks carried out a sales promotion campaign, with the objective of riding on the hype created by the giants.

Hence, we can conclude that the entry of Anchor Power Malt, has created a major rejuvenation in the somewhat stereotype malted milk category. Hopefully, this would benefit all players and the Sri Lankan consumer would be the ultimate winner.

Warfare No 2 - Maliban vs Munchee (The Biscuit Wars)

Maliban is a brand name synonymous with biscuits in Sri Lanka. Maliban is positioned as a good quality biscuit, with a traditional Sri Lankan image and identity.

Munchee, a relatively new entrant to the biscuit market, has over the years challenged Maliban's leadership position, through aggressive marketing, innovative product development and clever segmentation and positioning. Munchee, basically identified products which Maliban dominated and challenged them with clever renovations!

For example, Munchee Tikiri Marie (Maliban-Marie) Munchee Super Cream Cracker (Maliban Cream Cracker) and Munchee Real Lemon Puff (Maliban Lemon Puff). Whilst Munchee kept on attacking Maliban, Maliban initially adopted a laid back attitude, revolving around "let's wait and see".

This was the opening Munchee was hoping for and they capitalised on this opportunity.

When one analyses Munchee's strategy, they clearly demonstrated how a market challenger should behave. In marketing warfare terms, Munchee adopted a three-pronged challenger strategy, namely, frontal attack, encirclement attack and segmental attacks. Let me strive to explain these strategies.

Munchee took Maliban head-on introducing me-too products with improvements in quality and taste. Further, product focused marketing communication activities were carried out, supplemented by excellent distribution width and depth. Munchee also encircled Maliban by utilizing the marketing mix effectively. Product launches, modifications and new introductions, aggressive penetration pricing, greater depth in distribution and focused marketing communications.

All these marketing mix activities were carried out simultaneously, thereby choking (encircling) Maliban. As against Maliban's traditional biscuit image, Munchee positioned itself as a modern, dynamic, youthful brand of biscuit. Basically, the Maliban personality would be a greying traditional person, whilst for Munchee, it would be a youthful and aggressive person. (A modern Sri Lankan)

New market segments

Another facet of the Munchee strategy was the launch of the Ritzbury and Tiffin Brands, to cater to new market segments. (Segmental attack). Ritzbury being primarily a chocolate coated biscuit, appealing to teenagers and young adults.

What was Maliban's response to all these attacks by Munchee. First and foremost Maliban was too late in responding. In my opinion, they would have lost considerable market share, during their period of inactivity. Maliban counter attacked Munchee Super Cream Crackers, by communicating that they were the pioneer, thereby re-emphasizing their traditional personality. (Cream Cracker with lunu miris and ambul thiyal).

I am certain that Munchee would have been overjoyed by the Maliban response. Munchee would be saying "I told you so. Maliban belongs to the older generation". All in all, Maliban's response was quite weak and they did not assert themselves as market leaders.

The market share story will no doubt tell the tale. The lesson from this to marketer's is not to be complacent with your market leadership position. When in market leadership positions, you must act as leaders, by driving market growth, relentless product modifications and improvements and customer loyalty enhancing programs. Do not wait for an astute challenger like Munchee to attack you. Therefore, you have to be proactive and aim to keep away competitive attacks.

Conclusion

Through this brief article, one can observe, that marketing strategy in practice has the conceptual outlook prescribed in textbooks. As practising marketers, we should learn from brand campaigns and sharpen our strategy development and implementation skills.

It would be important to note that the observations made in this article are as viewed from a professional marketing standpoint and are essentially the writer's point of view.

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