Amul is considered as the “Amoolya” brand, which is the word of Sanskrit language, which means, anything that is priceless or invaluable. Along with the existence in every category of the product made from milk, it is successful in winning the hearts of the consumers and highest market share, and became the highest valued brand in the origin of India. The establishment of Amul was done due to the dairy farmers’ revolt. Currently, Amul is known as the one of the strongest brand, which has many powerful and strong competitors, but still the efficient staff and employees work hard to maintain its leading position. The marketing mix of Amul has played a vital role in the success of the company, here is the depth evaluation and analysis of Amul’s marketing mix (Amul, 2018).
Products in Marketing Mix of Amul
Amul is successful in making the strong and valued product portfolio, which is maily consist of all dairy products like Amul butter, Amul ice-cream, and Amul cheese are considered as cash cows because these products are successful in capturing the highest market share in individual product category. The ice-cream of Amul is ranked among the top ten brands of the Indian ice-cream. Amul Paneer, Amul Dahi and Amul milk demand is rising day by day. In fact, the Amul milk is capturing the 26% of the market share in the segment of packaged milk. However, the chocolate of Amul has shown the disappointing performance, and considered as a burden on the company, as its sales needs a lot of push and strategies. This is mainly due to the existence of the much stronger competitors like Dairy Milk, Parle etc (Mba skool, 2018).
Amul has the big family tree, refer to as product portfolio which include following brands; Amul bread spreads, Amul milk, Amul cheese, Amul kool with variants, Amul ice-cream, Amul pro, Amul Dahi, AMul Paneer, Amul ghee, Amul nutramul, Amul milk powder, Amul broad range of mithai, Amul mithai mate, Amul butter milk, and Amul chocolates. Hence, the Amul’s product portfolio considers the broad range of different dairy origins, with amazing quality. It has several strong competitors but in different product categories. In the ice-cream category, Dinshaws, Havmor and Vadilal are the rivals. In milk and butter, Britannia, mother dairy and many others are rivals. However, there is no competitors in the industry who has the same type of product portfolio as Amul, and this is the competitive advantage point for Amul (Amul, 2018).
Place in Marketing Mix of Amul
Amul has carefully maintained the massive and integrated distribution network. The main reason for this is that, its ice-creams, cheese, milk and butter has huge demand and need to be available everywhere easily. As being operating the FMCG products, it is necessary for Amul to follow the strategy of breaking bulks. The beginning output picked from the factory is in bulk, and then it breaks the bulk among smaller portions and then lastly, in separate butter slabs or ice-cream scoops, which are sell in the retail outlets.
Amul’s distributions of products are done in two different ways or channels. First is the procurement channel that is accountable for gathering the milk from all dairy co-operatives. Second is distribution channel that is accountable for the distribution of final products to final consumers. In procurement channel, milk is delivered individually from the farmers to co-operatives. Then these co-operatives collect all the milk and further send in bulk to manufacturing unit. There, this milk is used as the main ingredient in different products. In distribution channels, the forwarding and carrying agents, dealers, retailers and agents are involved. There are some Amul shoppe also, where all the products of the Amul available. The distribution of the Amul is more like;
• Amul- modern retailers or outlets.
• Amul- forwarding and carrying agents- distributors- dealer- retailer- Amul shoppe- consumer.
Hence, there is huge cost of transportation involved for the products, however, the distribution network make sure that products are available everywhere (Bahsin, 2018).
Price in Marketing Mix of Amul
Amul follows the strategy of keeping low prices and most affordable, thus follow the low-cost pricing strategy. Many people refer it as the penetrative pricing also, but penetrating prices are used when competition level is high in the market and company needs to survive in the industry by offering low prices. However, during the initial days of Amul, there was no company who is offering these products under one name and market was unorganized. The vision of Amul was to provide the quality products to customers at most reasonable prices, and this vision remains the same up till today. Even today, the products of Amul are available in market at most affordable rates. Dairy products are usually very costly, but in reality, cost has nothing with the strategy. The increase in the cost of storage, distribution and transportation effect the cost of the products to rise. But still, if the average cost of Indian consumers is calculated, the prices are still very low (Mba Skool, 2018).
Promotion in Marketing Mix of Amul
Amul has the unique, longest and one of the strongest outdoor marketing campaigns along with the outdoor ad character of Amul- “the Amul girl”. The character was specially design and created for the brand, which reflects on some sweet, cute and naughty nature of the girls. This was the successful campaign, and this character is remembered by everyone in India. The hoardings of Amul feature the news and latest information about everything. However, every ads hit the nails on head. The major promotion is done for butter, but not really for other products. Amul chooses ATL during the introductory days and advertise butter, milk etc. But overall, the promotion and ads are BTL like trade promotions, sales promotions, discount schemes and outdoor campaigns (Bhasin, 2018).
References
Amul, 2018. About us. [Online], Available at: http://amul.com/, [Accessed on: 24th June, 2018].
Bhasin, H. 2018. Marketing mix of Amul. [Online], Available at: https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-of-amul/, [Accessed on: 24th June, 2018].
Mba Skool, 2018. Amul’s marketing mix. [Online], Available at: https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/17258-amul.html, [Accessed on: 24th June, 2018].