As Parle tops Kantar’s most chosen in-home brand chart

On Wednesday, Kantar released the 11th edition of its annual Brand Footprint India report. Parle tops the charts as the most chosen (in-home) FMCG brand for the year 2022. Parle has emerged as the most chosen in-house FMCG brand, while Britannia tops Kantar’s list of most chosen out-of-home FMCG brands, a list they’ve introduced for the first time.

The report dissects the success of brands based on their consumer reach points (CRPs), which are calculated by the population, penetration and frequency of purchases over a calendar year. As per the report, Parle holds the top spot for a record 11th year in a row, with a CRP score of 7449 million, followed by Britannia, Amul, Clinic Plus, and Tata Consumer Products.

Compared to last year, the report reveals that consumer reach points have increased by almost 50% in the last five years. Beverages has been the fastest growing category this calendar year with a CRP growth of around 24% in 2022. 

The report also reveals that four new brands have joined the Billion CRP club, including Balaji, Lux, Sunsilk, and Nirma. Over the last 5 years, the number of brands in the billion CRP bracket has increased from 16 to 28. 

Interestingly, dairy brands who’ve displayed lower penetration have upped their CRP score with high frequencies (consumer engagement). 

Within the most chosen out-of-home FMCG brands, Britannia leads the inaugural list with 498 million CRP score, followed by Haldiram’s, Cadbury, balaji, and Parle. Frooti leads the list of the most chosen OOH beverage brand in India, followed by Thums Up, Amul, Maaza, and Sprite.

The year also saw some big names who upped their penetration in India. The list is topped by Sunfeast, followed by Haldiram’s, Sunsilk, Exo, and Surf Excel.

While the report assesses the penetration from both urban and rural markets, Kantar’s managing director K Ramakrishnan revealed to afaqs! that rural has contributed almost identically as urban. 

He said, “There is not much of a difference between urban and rural contribution to the penetration growth. Among the top 10 brands, for example, rural was contributing 52% of the penetration growth, and urban 48%.”

The key components of CRP points, as mentioned above, are population, penetration and consumer choice. Effectively, any of the three metrics, if increased, could lead to a better CRP score. However, Ramakrishnan points out that penetration is crucial in increasing the frequency of purchases for the brand. In other words, the two aren’t always mutually exclusive.

He says, “The key driver of frequency is penetration itself. There is clear scientific evidence that when brands grow in penetration, they more or less grow in frequency too. While it is difficult to directly impact the number of shop visits, driving penetration clearly helps.”

So, even if a brand is small in penetration, if it focuses on driving it, there is a higher chance that it will grow in frequency as well.