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"Ethnicity in a bottle" As the local-‐ethnic embraces modern branding hues, here is at hand indeed a silent revolution in India!! "Punjab Sind"
Yet another local brand, a consumer brand which enjoys ethnic -‐ local market trust gets into packaging, branding & cracks modern retail. Most local & been here for a while mumbaikars have come to love & trust Punjab Sind for their paneer (cottage cheese), lassi & other dairy products. Increase in demand and opportunity projected lead to multiple outlets & hence ramping up of production capabilities, leading to a further opportunity realisation of getting into packaged FMCG... I went to a 24/7 medical store to buy a strip of antacid, saw a fellow customer billing 4 packs of this lassi (churned yogurt/curd -‐ flavoured & plain), felt aah! here's an even faster relief and an immediate calmer for my acidic tummy and went and looked for it. Right next were a range of other big national brands with packaged lassi. But as soon as I saw "Punjab Sind" -‐ I said hey! is it the same "my Punjab Sind?" -‐ nah! cant be!! But I took a closer look and to my delight realised it was indeed amchi (our own) Punjab Sind in smart packaging. Presto, my hands automatically grabbed these instead of Amul / Britannia and others. Wait a minute, I always thought of Amul as my dear local-‐cool, cooperative movement backed amchi brand -‐ but here I found myself thinking Punjab Sind as more amchi than Amul.
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Aaah! the emergence of the relative Amchi. Amul based out of anand in Gujarat is less amchi than Punjab Sind which enjoys my everyday trust & interaction and hence my immediate / local -‐ contextually relevant trust. I excitedly spoke to my wife about this & was in turn told there was also Parsi dairy milk products available and she preferred them over Amul, Britannia, Mother Dairy etc. I immediately thought of my earlier post on ethnic products & ethnic distribution systems. ( http://on.fb.me/1vvixCn ) between local brands which enjoy trust of ethnic products finding local distribution systems and others cracking modern distribution systems -‐ the F&B market in India is headed towards exciting times. Split market shares, micro-‐fragmented markets with each locality mushrooming its own local-‐hero brands is indeed going to pose a huge headache for the #pepsi #cocacola #amul #motherdairy #brittania kind of companies. It is a matter of which & how many of these local brands manage to grow, consolidate and extend beyond their ethnic stronghold geographies is a matter of brand play, capital -‐ not being trade locked, out-‐discounted and out distributed by the bigger players. But with so much more money being invested into other 3p's of marketing -‐ are big brands going to have the same mega-‐large budgets for promotion?. How long will their parent brands i India and abroad be able to sustain this support?. Yes the new gen Indian youth may trust global & national brands more and showcase their preferences more -‐ but every such young group has a genuine foodie amidst them -‐ who introduces the ethnic fervour into their palette as well and their mums & dads and the culture of their household and the new found pride in re-‐discovering and celebrating ethnic culture amongst youth is also on the rise (look at the amount of youngsters also visiting a #potoba eating place). For every 10 ethnic brands which mushroom, 6/7 may die away or be acquired and merged (like Dukes), but for every 3/4 which survive and make it big shall inspire other ethnic brands to try...thus creating a never ending cycle. As far as acquisition strategy goes, Duke's Mangola is still a local fav and Mumbaikars still refer to it as Duke's and not as Pepsi Duke's or Duke's by Pepsi. Same with #thumsup -‐ in spite of Coke trying to choke it, it is still the No:1 cola brand of the country. How many acquisitions can MNC's sustain? For a global brand offers efficiencies of scale. I don’t think we will ever be a USA -‐ which has such homogenous beverage consumption -‐ like in all other things; in this category too shall we remain plural as a nation -‐ posing complexity? Good counter balance at play? don’t know...but definitely interesting times ahead :D
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"Punjab Sind" now and simultaneously happening... Gujarata, Maratha -‐ Dravida, Utkala.... (pun intended) its happening everywhere locally! #wolfsighhts #wolfsight Wolfzhowl