Free Essay with a Case Analysis of Pulse Candy: Sustaining the Brand Differentiation

The Dharampal Satyapal Group was founded in 1929, and it is involved in some sectors such as mouth fresheners, packaging, tobacco, agro-forestry, hospitality, and food and beverage. The company developed a new hard-boiled candy in April 2015. The candy named pulse quickly became popular because it had a distinctive tangy taste and a raw mango flavor. Pulse candy exceeded about 3 billion in sales just in two years and became a leading national and international brand in India and abroad. The Dharampal Satyapal Group was able to achieve this with minimal promotion and a small advertising budget. However, the candy success was credited to the interest in social media and word of mouth. The company took advantage of this digital era, but still, the use of word of mouth stood out. The demand exceeded the supply, and The Dharampal Satyapal Group's competitors began to launch poorly imitated and similar products. Therefore, Pulse Candy proved that no marketing beats product marketing, and the candy had beaten all competition bypass the 100 crore mark in just eight months. This paper analyses the Dharampal Satyapal Group about how it can maintain the sales impetus of Pulse Candy, how it can extend the Pulse Candy brand to other product categories such as formats and flavours, and whether the company should take the Pulse candy by expanding to markets abroad.

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The Product category strategy

Customer satisfaction and loyalty can only be created through product innovation. The Dharampal Satyapal Group is the most excellent company that should not leave things to probability. Their product can only be world class they must introduce new flavours in its primary product category. Since the Pulse Candy category has few entry barriers that make new companies enter the market, there are also quick exists too. With few entries and exist, innovation is facilitated such as the coffee-flavoured segment that happened recently. The lollipop, toffees and eclairs segments grew drastically in 2015. These segments also underwent growth with minimal merchandising and no advertising. This makes Pulse candy a story of a product becoming an ultimate winner.

The best strategy for Dharampal Satyapal Group is to develop a product category, which speaks for itself. The company can sell in large volumes if the unit price is low. The Rs 100 crore has a big confectionary number, and anything past Rs 50 crore will be a big business primarily in the sugar candy segment. The company's Kaccha Mango Bite (Rs 0.5) already joined the Rs 100 crore leagues, while Melody (Re 1) is still looking to join. Besides Parle, the Dharampal Satyapal Group compete with companies such as ITC, Mondelez India, and Perfetti Van Melle that has candy brands like Candyman, Cadbury Chocolates and Alpenliebe. Distribution will also be relevant since most companies in this market face some challenges in their distribution line. With innovation, the product category will move from the paise price point because consumers are always ready to pay for the change and new flavours.

Going International

Dharampal Satyapal Group needs to take Candy Pulse to international markets. By introducing pulse in its raw orange, pineapples, guava, and mango varieties in the Singapore, Malaysia, Gulf countries, and the UK will help the company gain more competitive advantage and increase its market share. Surana, one of the top company executive said that the company had got a lot of queries from abroad because they got Indians abroad who love still love Pulse Candy.

Dharampal Satyapal Group also needs to increase in manufacturing capacity and invest more in advertising and marketing the pulse candy abroad. Although the brand helped the company to increase its revenues through word of mouth in 2015, the advertising strategy may not work abroad, and it would require new methods of marketing and advertisement abroad such as online marketing techniques like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Through this, the market of hard boiled candy would grow with a compound annual growth of more than 9% that was experienced in 2016.

Differentiation Factors

Pulse candy was conceptualized in 2013 and latter launched in 2015. The differentiation strategy refers to when services and products are different from that of competitors. The company must provide unique attributes that are better than that of competitors and perceived to be by consumers as better. Therefore, the differentiation strategy involves products differentiation, services differentiation and human resource differentiations. Therefore, the company needs to start with the 4 Ps of marketing. First, by product has to be something that customers can differentiate, value added, and something that customers want. The company needs to innovate more and come up with new flavors of Pulse Candy. Adding new flavors to the market will increase customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, increase revenue, and increase competitive advantage. Therefore, product differentiation is still important at this point.

Secondly, Price s a very important aspect that can either break or built a product. Most candies in the market are valued at 50 paisa. However, Dharampal Satyapal Group priced its Pulse candy at Re 1. They took this decision because the company is providing a value added product wit a basic grammage of 4gm, compared to its competitors who are providing a 2.5gm candy. However, Dharampal Satyapal Group needs to realize that customers are value conscious and cost conscious ad they are always looking to get valuable products at low prices. Using a low cost pricing strategy will help to stimulate Pulse Candy demand and increase the company's market share. By cutting costs, Candy Pulse will achieve success due to its possible prices for a given perceived value.

Thirdly, placement is a critical aspect in the success of Pulse Candy. The company has more than a million outlets. Although the entire distribution channels it has been successful, Dharampal Satyapal Group needs to understand that that its customer segment exists in both metropolitan areas and rural areas. However, in this millennia, the company needs to sell its products online due to the large number of customers using internet to make it more accessible to target consumers.

Finally, for promotion, Dharampal Satyapal Group primarily used word of mouth in marketing and promotion with little presence in online marketing. Although it also used TV commercials, the company needs to focus on the digital space in this day and age. More material content about pulse needs to be present on the digital space to achieve higher sales and penetrate the market more than its rivals.

References

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In SERVICES MARKETING: People Technology Strategy (pp. 120-121).

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case study of pulse candy. Retrieved from: http://www.allresearchjournal.com/archives/2016/vol2issue11/PartA/2-10-117-624.pdfKurtz, B. (2016). Contemporary Marketing. 4th edition, Mackenzie Snow. Canada