childish Remember it is mostly children who consume Nutrine confectionery not teenagers not adults And children love the bunny My son still remembers the advertisement we ran in the 1980s in Chandamama with bunnies holding Nutrine SuperStar Toffees The bunny is our identity We cannot change what we are Ganapathy VP Operations But things change Even customers do The question is can the bunny hop into new confectionary categories Will customers accept the bunny in the mints and gum categories Karthik VP Marketing Introduction Nutrine was developed as the umbrella brand sometimes called the parent or family brand for all confectionery products produced by the Nutrine Confectionery Company NCC All the products it launched initially carried only the name Nutrine on their wrappers To attract its target group of children between the ages of 6 and 13 years Nutrine used a bunny brand character this bunny quickly became part of Nutrine s identity Many middle aged Indian consumers still reminisce about the Nutrine Bunny of their childhood the Bunny advertisements the Bunny teeth they received when they purchased a package of confectionaries such as Kokanaka Cookies But modern kids are different more individualistic more exposed to global media and highly brand and image conscious They understand brands through visual representations Does the bunny on the wrapper still have broad appeal More important is the Background As competition intensified in the confectionery industry in the early part of the twenty first century Nutrine found itself falling behind the competition After intensive negotiations with both Cadbury and Nestl Nutrine finally sold to Godrej Beverages and Foods GBFL in June 2006 In April 2007 GBFL entered into a joint venture with Hershey s But the lack of focus in Nutrine s brand investments between 2003 and 2006 continued to affect the business and its brands The Nutrine portfolio contains products in various confectionery categories but its major brands dominate in three hard boiled candy clairs and toffee Two key brands accounted for a whopping 70 of Nutrine s revenues Nutrine MahaLacto hard boiled candy and Nutrine clairs Unfortunately both key brands were losing substantial market share MahaLacto continued to have a strong brand name independent of its association with Nutrine Despite minimal branding efforts between 2003 and 2007 MahaLacto ranked eighth in a 2007 brand equity survey conducted by the Economic Times behind the chocolate brands Dairy Milk 5 Star KitKat and Perk and heavily advertised brands such as Big Babol and Boomer The GBFL Hershey marketing team had a clear task cut out for it to define a brand roadmap that would arrest declining revenues increase the marketing focus on key brands to enhance sales and build top lines by launching innovative brand extensions into new confectionery categories A key question considered was whether to continue with Nutrine as an umbrella brand if the company chose to make forays into new categories such as mints and gum which includes both bubble gum and chewing gum The details of this case are as of June 1 2007 Appendix 2 displays key brands owned by the Nutrine Confectionary Company Appendix 3 lists all confectionery categories and the key features of each category