This is why Indian Cookie Companies Should Launch “Chandra” Biscuits ASAP
Top of the Mind = Tip of the Tongue
I bought the book “Contagious” last month. In all honesty, I did not check the genre of the book while making the purchase.
I thought it was related to the Covid-19 pandemic. It turned out to be a Marketing Book — one of the best I’ve read in my lifetime.
The most intriguing story I found in the book was related to Mars Cholcolate Bars. In 1997, the sales of the bars skyrocketed out of the blue. No one had any clue what was happening. Even the CEO was perplexed.
How could this happen with no additional money being spent on advertising, no changes in pricing and no additional or special marketing promotions?
The answer lies in our environment.
Triggers
I love the game of Chess. However, I always end up reading more about racial discrimination and the atrocities still being faced by Blacks in this time and age. So how does the game trigger this behaviour of mine every time? Because the according to the Chess’rules, White moves first.
At any given point in time, some thoughts would be more top of our mind than others. Right now, you might be thinking of this sentence if you’r reading it. Or maybe the coffee you’re having while reading it.
But stimuli in the environment can also bring things to top of our heads. I’m sure if a wasp is buzzing around you right now, you might be thinking of opening Amazon in a separate tab and ordering one of those rechargeable anti-mosquito rackets. You might even want to talk to a friend about it before purchasing one.
These stimuli are called Triggers. They basically bring what’s on top of our mind to the tip of our tongue (as explained by Jonah Berger in Contagious). I would not have bought his book if we weren’t in the middle of this pandemic. The Corona Virus trigger led me to purchase the book.
Chocolates and Rockets
Coming back to 1997. In same year, NASA was planning to send a rocket in space as a part of its one of a kind space exploratory missions to collect samples of soil, atmosphere and climate from a nearby planet.
Not only was there a huge amount of excitement among people across the globe, but huge media coverage as well around the agency’s space mission. When the pathfinder finally touched down, the world erupted with joy.
Any guesses where NASA’s spacecraft was heading towards?
The Planet MARS!
Mars bars are named after the company’s founder, Franklin Mars, and Not tha planet. However, NASA’s Mars landing mission pushed the Mars chocolate bars at top of everyone’s mind. It was like a little reminder to make people think, talk about and purchase the product.
NASA’s Mars exploratory mission, unexpectedly, triggered the entire world to purchase and consume Mars Chocolate Bars.
Covid Negative
It’s not always sunshine and rainbows though. Ask the world’s largest brewer AB Invev (Annheuser Busch) if you want to. They turned out to be one of the most impacted companies by the Corona Virus through no fault of their own.
Although the Corona Beer has no relation whatsoever to the ongoing CoronaVirus, the name “Corona” has had a huge negative impact on its sales. Not only this, the internet was flooded with Corona Beer memes and unproven relations being established between the beer and the virus.
Consider this tweet from March ’20 for example —
Panic buying cleared out all the safe beer. Only Corona left #COVID19pic.twitter.com/RbKBcmfkag — Steve Slatcher (@winenous) March 20, 2020
Corona Beer was one of my personal favourites, but for all you know, due to all the negative publicity and the word out there, AB Inbev might just have to rename the Corona Beer brand to something else.
Suggestion for Indian Cookie Companies
Jonnah has made many more revelations about triggers in environment and consumer behaviour in her book. Like people buying french wine when french music is being played in the background. Or how KitKat used coffee as an excellent trigger to make consumers think about KitKat while having coffee.
The top Indian Cookie companies like Britannia, Parle, Anmol and Sunfeast hardly innovate. Most of the biscuits look the same, taste the same and are priced the same. My personal favourite is Hide-N-Seek because it’s a little different than others.
With the rising cookie demand in the country and GST cutting into biscuit sales, it’s high time that the companies start innovating. A daring risk that one of these companies can take is to come out with star-shaped biscuits and naming them as “Chandra-Biscuits.”
With a strong and proven case-study of Mars chocolates of ’97, this is something that can be of a huge benefit for them.
As ridiculous as it sounds, Chandra Cookies might just be the unexpected beneficiary of the next Chandrayaan mission.
To add to this, a big trigger in the environment for consuming such cookies could be the nightfall. Whenever the stars are shining bright in the sky, consumers might want to take a bite of Chandra Cookies.
However, this is all a big optimistic hypothesis. For all you know, and god forbid, ISRO’s next mission (Chadrayaan-3) might not see the light of success like its predecessors.
And if that happens, the Chadra Cookies might be at the risk of being eaten and beaten through no fault of their own.
