Amitabh Bachchan turned out to be a great investment: Neha Rao, Bikaji

‘Bikaji Khao London Jao’ is the first ever mega campaign and festive campaign by the sweets, snacks and restaurant company, Bikaji. Neha Rao, Vice President – Marketing, Bikaji says, “We spent the last five years establishing the category and the brand. Now, that we have hit a certain point we wanted to see how we could engage more with the consumer. This was the primary thought behind with the campaign.”

Typically, when it comes to contests organised by brands, the probability of winning is all down to a matter of chance. However, in the ‘Bikaji Khao London Jao’ campaign , every consumer is assured a prize for buying a family pack. Scanning the unique code on the pack can lead to gratifications ranging from a trip to London, two-wheelers, Television, household appliances, vouchers and cashback offers.

Rao adds, “Usually the offers come from retailers and distributors but you don’t see direct consumer offers in the traditional snacks and sweets category. We started the offer on our family packs as they enjoy loyalty.”

Given it’s the festive season, Bikaji has added its top selling sweets to the campaign. This was the first massive step taken by the brand to connect with the consumer to drive engagement. The idea is to increase Bikaji’s pick ability where it occupies the same shelf as its competition. The on-pack promotion has also been big from the shopper marketing perspective.

Rao says, “Given the numbers, I'd like to go up as compared to the industry growth and our current growth rate. For us, it’s important that given the choice available to consumers, they pick up Bikaji’s on the back of the promo campaign, the hooks that we have, we believe are good for the consumer.”

Looking back, the festive consumer campaign and the focus on digital have been the major shifts that has happened in the last couple of years. Rao explains, “Earlier, we've done category and branding work and have advertised during the festive season, but not on a festive campaign. This is the first time we have done a festive consumer campaign.” She adds, “Secondly, there’s a focus on digital now. It's moving, and in the next two years, you'll see a lot more on this front. We’ve started investing in it and trying to get there, in terms of, being digital first as a large chunk of the audience is there, and will continue moving there in the next five years.”

Leveraging Shahenshah’s Might

Another first for the ethnic snacking category was having actor Amitabh Bachchan as the face of Bikaji. The idea to onboard a brand ambassador was to move out of Bikaji’s core markets - HSMs areas – into new markets and get immediate brand recall and registry in the other markets. Rao says, “Amitabh Bachchan turned out to be a very good investment. The trust and magnitude, he brings is very big. When the campaign was launched, we showcased the lighter side of Amitabh Bachchan, similar to the side of him you see in his movies and even on Television as host of Kaun Banega Crorepati. There is a lighter side of him which we didn't see in his early years and which we capitalized on for the ad campaign.”

The first campaign with the actor focused on brand Bikaji and building the crispy, deep-fried snack, Bikaji, that originated in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India. This was followed by adding sweets and the other products in the portfolio. The third brand campaign included more products from its current categories. Rao states, “The overall brand trust has improved and we've seen brand health improvement, especially when entering newer markets. There's instant brand recall, we've also invested in media which helped us as a brand in terms of the perceptual transition from a regional to a national brand.”

Capitalizing On Strong Growth

In its Q2 results, Bikaji reported a 15% jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 68.6 crore and revenue rose 19% to Rs 721.2 crore during the three months ended September. The ethnic snacks revenue was up by 10.5%, with the segment contributing 63.8% to the overall revenue. In Q1, Bikaji reported a mammoth increase of 2786.77% in revenue and a huge surge of 8394.85% in profit year-over-year. On a QoQ basis, the company witnessed an impressive growth of 2716.39% in revenue and a significant increase of 4008.83% in profit. Currently, Bikaji’s A&M spends is pegged around 2% of its revenue.

New Markets On The Horizon

Currently, Bikaji’s core markets are Rajasthan, Assam and Bihar with the strategy being to continue investment to sustain and grow. The company’s focus is on Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab and Chhattisgarh where the brand would like to have a larger play. The brand has strategically been tweaking its media mix with BTL taking a larger share and showing results. Currently, while Digital spends remain small, plans are to increase its scale to capture an audience that has not been captured through the traditional routes. The company is betting big on the festive season in Q3 to drive sales and volume. The ‘Bikaji Khao London Jao’ will continue till November. A category that has seen significant growth is gifting with demand for premium products growing across modern trade, e-commerce and quick commerce.

Continuous innovation is key because while the growth has come from our core states, the expansion has to come in from our focus markets where we have a smaller base. Rao says, “In the next three to five years, we see the focus markets having a larger base. Whereas in our core states, we remain vigilant and active to maintain our leadership position. With the focus areas, we aim to cover more ground to be able to set the base right for the next three to five years.”

She continues, “If we talk of growth percentages, the core market will be smaller as compared to focus market. The idea is to gain category share across, that’s why the category and the geography play comes in and why we've split our markets into core markets and focus markets. We have been working ground upwards and building the blocks for the next few years.” Bikaji recently opened a QSR outlet in Mumbai and expansion plans are to open both standalone retail stores and QSR outlets in the next six to eight months. Exports are also a growth area with Bikaji investing in a frozen food unit. Rao says, “The idea is to be able to support exports as it gives us the leverage in the frozen food market. Today, frozen is about 35% of exports and we can take it up to about 40% in the coming few quarters. This year, we've grown our capacity that for the next two to three years, we'll bringing up the production of frozen food, primarily for the international market.”