How the Cookie Crumbles..: The Promotion Strategy

Promotion can be defined as any message or communication which is designed to persuade the consumer to purchase a product. The aim is to drive brand interaction which may lead to current or future sales.

Usually, there is a sequence of events that a consumer goes through before he purchases the product. Different promotional strategies are used in the different stages so that the consumer purchases it. During the introduction stage of the product, it is important to create awareness, this was done by Sunfeast Farmlite on the Bengaluru Airport- passengers were asked to ride a cycle and manually make the carousel work. It also created awareness by giving samples on the airport and in the Mumbai Marathon.

The second stage is to induce customers to actually buy the product – this is done through giving retailers incentives to stock the product. It also uses mass communication strategies such as Print and Television to stay on the top of mind of the consumer. There are many TVCs and Print campaigns of Farmlite.

There are two main approaches of promoting a product –

The Push Approach – This involves strategies used to sell the product by price promotions & advertising.

The Pull Approach – The pull strategy emphasizes on creating demand for the brand so that consumers will come to the store to buy the particular product.

Sunfeast Farmlite uses the Push Approach as it is competitively priced and uses promotions to sell its products.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Marketing Communications are the means by which firms try to inform, persuade and remind customers about the products that they are offering. It also helps the customer to know how, when, where and by whom a product is used. Marketing communications is basically done to create awareness and build a strong perception in the minds of the customer about the product and/or the brand.

Integrated Marketing Communications is an approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other. The task of IMC is to make sure that all messaging and communications strategies are unified across all mediums (traditional as well as non-traditional). Hence, the communication regarding a product should be uniform in all promotional methods used – Advertising (TV, radio, OOH etc), Digital, Public Relations, and Experiential.

The brand Sunfeast Farmlite, conducted an integrated marketing approach in creating awareness about its product. The message across all platforms was the same – Promote a healthy lifestyle.

1 Sunfeast Farmlite organized India’s first reverse run with P.T.Usha.

2. The product was launched in Mumbai by reaching out to the 7000 people in a marathon.

3. The activation in Bangalore airport in April 2014, where passengers were asked to peddle the exercise cycle in order to get the conveyor belt started and get their luggage. Post this they were introduced to the product. Brand launched with on ground promotional activity and distributed 1.50 lacs free sampling with simple message “Pick Me” at Bengaluru Airport. On –ground activity is one of the best strategy where you can connect direct end-users, brand reach level very high, generate strong awareness, get prompt review & feedback, brand recalling, and interact with end-users appropriately.