Buzz Power 2008: Does it have the Bingo! quotient?

Bingo!, ITC Foods’ snacks brand, was a resounding success from the moment it was launched. Millward Brown Research showed that Bingo!’s launch campaign achieved brand awareness and ad awareness of 95 per cent

At Buzz Power, an initiative organised by agencyfaqs! and Kingfisher at the ITC Grand Central in Mumbai on February 14, a case study on Bingo! Chips was presented by Hemant Malik, head of marketing, ITC Foods.

Malik said that though Bingo! was launched 10 months ago, the work on the brand began about three years ago and it included understanding the category and the role of the supply chain.

Within seven months of its launch, Bingo! seized 16 per cent of the snack foods market, a market that was dominated by its main competitor. The Indian branded snacks market is pegged at Rs 2,400 crore and growing at 35 per cent year on year.

Malik shared some of the insights they got before launching Bingo! They learnt that the market consisted mainly of Western snacks such as potato chips, finger snacks such as Kurkure and traditional snacks such as ‘bhujia’. “We also learned that the consumer seeks variety; there is increased accessibility of snacking options and we would be competing with more than 200 Indian snacks like samosa, ‘jhalmoori’, etc. Thirdly, snacks are an impulse purchase – if the consumer sees it, he picks it up, if not, he doesn’t.”

Armed with these insights, ITC realised Bingo! would have to have a wide range, it would need to have significant presence at outlets, and they would have to pay attention to point of purchase merchandising since they would be competing with other brands occupying shelf space.

To tackle the first point of launching a wide range, they decided to identify the popular foods in specific regions, and pinpointed foods like ‘paneer tikka’ from the North and ‘khakras’ from the West.

“The challenge for the product development team was to convert these popular foods into chips that we could put into a bag,” said Malik. They were successful and Bingo! was launched in 16 flavours that were unheard of in the potato chips space, such as Chatkila Nimbu Achaar, Mustard Sting, Tandoori Paneer Tikka, Masala Chaas, etc. They also launched ‘khakra’ like snacks called Mad Angles and pakora inspired snacks called Live Wires and Tedhe Medhe.

The next target was the racks that would hold the bags of chips at retail outlets. “The retailer has less shelf space because of the clutter in brands. He already has a Pepsi rack, a Lay’s rack, etc. Why would he keep a Bingo! rack?” To solve this problem, the people at ITC needed to create an attractive rack that would offer the wide range of Bingo! chips to consumers. ITC decided not to create metal racks, but instead go the moulded plastic way. This would also work out cheaper in the long run. They approached a company that created moulded plastic dashboards for cars, but which had no experience with an FMCG company. But it worked wonderfully and the outcome was an attractive red and yellow Bingo! branded rack in an amphitheatrical tray design that offered enhanced visibility of the packs.

Next, Bingo! had to create a buzz for itself. “The category truth is that everyone snacks. The consumer insight now was that the young are the centre of gravity in society and the prime force in generating excitement and buzz, so it was imperative that the youth buy into the new brand. It was also critical to create badge value for the brand,” said Malik.

The communication strategy was to use clutter breaking communication and to create and sustain excitement around the brand. That’s when its ‘different’ campaign was created. The first campaign helped register the brand name Bingo! and the onomatopoeia in the ads created recall for Bingo! It also established the ‘combinations’ space for the brand. “Not many understood it in the beginning, but it grew on people over time. The point was that people loved it or hated it, but they did not ignore it,” said Malik.

Millward Brown Research showed that Bingo!’s launch campaign achieved brand awareness and ad awareness of 95 per cent.

The second campaign, built around Bingo!’s crunchiness, featured a scientist and his dedicated team who are trying to prove that the consumer feels that the chip is crunchier than the competition’s, even when he is subjected to various levels of torture.

Various below the line activities followed these campaigns, like the Bingo! Tick Tock Boing contest with Fever 104 FM, in which participants could win money, and the Bingo! Aerosmith Crazy Contest, which invited consumers to sing Aerosmith songs in different regional languages to win concert tickets and even meet the band. They also conducted other activities at youth touch-points such as malls and multiplexes. New media inputs like mobile and Internet added to the buzz for the brand. Bingo!’s campaigns became a talking point. The brand was declared the Best New Brand Launch by Business Standard.

In a short period of time, the brand managed to capture a reasonable market share and also the consumer’s attention. Malik shared that now, before any internal decision is taken on the brand, a question is posed: ‘Does it have the Bingo! quotient?’ If it does not, the idea is not implemented. Simple.

The event was sponsored by Kingfisher, NIA and Orienta Cine Advertising.