BREAKFAST: THE CEREAL KILLER

Aadesh Saxena looked with surprise at the spread on his house guest's breakfast plate.
There were two chapatis, a bowl of vegetables, a cup of dahi and a boiled egg. "How
can you eat this meal at 7 a.m.?" he asked Om Vasisht, a marketing consultant, and a
close friend of the Saxenas. 

Om looked down at his plate and said, "It is quite light, and very nourishing too!"
Aadesh tucked in his napkin as his tray of cereal, fruits and eggs arrived. "You must eat
cereal," he said. "So I am," said Om, pointing to the chapatis, "except bigger and
rounder!"

Aadesh who was the marketing head at Energee Foods, shook his head. "You obviously
didn't notice these boxes of Healthee wheat, corn and rice flakes," he said. "At least
when you are my guest you must eat what my company makes!"

"Oh, I gave up milk six years ago," said Om. "In any case, I am sure there are enough
people out there who are doing Healthee a lot more justice."

And that is what Aadesh was not sure of. Energee Foods manufactured a range of
ready-to-cook and eat foods and instant foods for breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea time
and dinner, including instant dosas and idlis, baked beans, jams and canned cooked
vegetables. Cereals was a growing market and was perceived as occupying a significant
share of the breakfast table. Consequently, last year Energee added cereals to its
portfolio.

But research findings this year were far from encouraging. Healthee was being bought
but not as often or as much as expected. Detailing parts of his research, he said to
Om: "We found that convenience foods have a maximum chance of succeeding in the
breakfast slot. Even there, for those who eat cereal it is not a total meal. They eat a
bit with their milk, but that is to wash down the milk. Kellogg's describe cereal as the
complete meal, but what is it completing? The per unit consumption is not what we
would prescribe for a full breakfast."

"But that will be so," said Om, "because it can never replace the vast repertoire of
breakfast foods we usually eat. You cannot change the eating habits of a people
because it is governed by the climate, the culture, what grows, the lifestyles, the
affordability... everything."

Om, in his research, had found that when it comes to food and eating, there were a
variety of segments -- varying from time as the limiting factor, to nutrition,
convenience and taste. "Let's look at different kinds of consumers, look at each set's
breakfast or eating habits. For example, how many eat breakfast at 7 a.m.? For
example, the housewife who is busy with getting the kids. At that point will cornflakes
satisfy her? Or is she also reaching for a paratha with pickle? The issue is not what you
want them to eat Aadesh, the issue is what are they eating anyway? Don't try and only
change habits. Stay with current habits and fit your products into those slots.
Simultaneously evolve their habits and allow your product range to evolve therefrom."

"Tell me, " said Om, "Did you adopt one single position? A single position works, you
know."

"What position?" asked Aadesh. "Within breakfast I adopted the convenience slot.
Kellogg's has occupied the breakfast slot, and that is what cereals are coming to be
seen for. It has already called it a breakfast food; naturally I am also calling it a
breakfast food. But it didn't exactly set the Yamuna on fire. The bottomline is: I don't
get a good feeling about our sales. Dealers are buying, but not enthusiastically,
consumers are buying, but there is something to consumer attitudes and behaviour.
Our research shows that the number of families buying are as per our expectations,
but not their volumes. I feel there is something more which we haven't identified."

"Okay, let's look at your positioning then," suggested Om. "The whole idea of
positioning cereal as a breakfast food, as a complement or a supplement to the
traditional Indian diet, was predominant in your mind. Now the mix that an average
Indian eats is most complete in most contexts already. So the niche that you have
selected is a narrow one which is where the problem comes in. Why do you think it is a
breakfast food?"

"Okay, at that hour people are in a rush to get to office or school," explained Aadesh.
"So we said it can be quickly had. Besides, it is light and nutritious and healthy. We
discovered that the rush segment doesn't eat anything anyway, and the non-rushed
segment already has a full meal, for whom this breakfast slot is not a valid slot at all."

"Even the rush segment," continued Aadesh, "while it does consume cereal, and claim
it is a healthy diet, does not eat a full cereal breakfast. The add-ons vary from a
paratha roll which is eaten on the way to the bus stop or in the car, to a cheese
sandwich or a bowl of fruit.

I also feel, to a large extent that time defines what they will eat. I know one family
which has always eaten Champion oats for breakfast 'because it is filling', and suffered
the resistance of the kids or the vast quantities of sugar that goes into dressing up the
oats.

These days they add generous quantities of Frosties or Chocos to the porridge which
sells better with the kids. So on days when the kids get up late, the oats is eliminated
and it's just Chocos and milk."

"You didn't realise that in India it is used as an additive to milk,'' said Om, "and,
therefore, unwittingly pitted yourself against Bournvita and Horlicks! So, what then is
the role of the cereal?" asked Om. "Breakfast? When I think about it, I don't think
Kellogg's has positioned its cereal for the rush segment or for a state of rush. It
positioned it as a supplement. Now who is it competing with? With the paratha or
dosa, with Bournvita or Boost or Complan which is added to flavour the milk to push it
down the throat easily. So where is the cereal landing up? Necessarily it is cornering
itself into a position of insignificance.

This means that if the cereal is not present on the table, it won't make such a big
difference. It is incidental. Most families have a menu of options -- honey, Bournvita,
oats, dalia, dosas, parathas -- all these have been conventional breakfast options. In
such a basket, the cereal is an incidental come-and-go activity. By offering it as a
nutritional element at breakfast or a complement to the existing breakfast fare, it is
doomed to be a niche player in the basket. Do you see?"  

"And that is because you have put it into the breakfast slot," said Om. "Therefore by
definition, once it is 9 a.m., the box of cereal is of no relevance on the table; it is not
visited until the next morning. It does not return to the dining table. That's what you
have to apply your mind to. By restricting it to the breakfast table you are reducing its
efficacy and utility for the rest of the day.

"Healthee should seek to be a product which has free mobility on the table, across all
meals," felt Om. "Healthee should be an anytime food, in the same way in which Maggi
noodles can be had at breakfast, or at lunch or as a filler or at dinner with a variety of
vegetables thrown in," suggested Om.

"How is that tenable? " asked Aadesh. "When the Kellogg's of this world are swearing
they are breakfast foods, how can I come in and say, 'Healthee is an anytime food?'"

"A food is what you position it as," said Om. "Now look at Maggi's positioning.
Fundamentally, it can be perceived as a meal-time food. Instead, it is an anytime
food. It is two minutes away from satisfaction and convenience. If Maggi had
positioned noodles like you have positioned Healthee, it would have ended up
becoming another meal. But NestlŽ researched and found the evening slot as the key
slot to take up a position. So it became a snack food. With time, overlaps happened
and people started having it at other times, as a filler, as a distraction, as a meal-
between-meals and it came to become an anytime food. So the two-minute concept
was positioned more as an evening emergency snack for kids and then it caught on.
From 'once-a-week-Maggi' it started happening thrice a week."

Convenience, nutrition, health were just positions to take, felt Om. "And each of these
has a place in every meal," said Om, "and you have to decide on the meal slot. For
that you will need to look at eating habits at every meal. The day shifts in India
because of the huge trading community. So, you have a heavy breakfast which is
essentially the lunch fare. Very few people actually eat lunch regularly at a
restaurant. Either they carry packed food or have food delivered to them or, like the
traders, eat an early 10 a.m. lunch on which they subsist the whole day. For different
professions it works differently. But it is the dinner hour that is mostly pegged to
7-7.30 p.m.

"So, where are the slots where a snacky meal can come in," asked Om, "where
convenience is required, where time is the issue, where the meal has to be light.
These are the slots for your cereal to fit in. What I am saying is that you don't
necessarily have to position Healthee as a breakfast food." Aadesh resisted that. "You
can't change something so fundamental!" he said. "Let us look at what you have,"
persisted Om.

"You came in with cornflakes because you believed the Indian habit was changing in
that direction. Have you examined current eating habits?"

"The point is, Healthee, or for that matter any cereal, while it is being bought, isn't
becoming the core breakfast item on the table," said Aadesh. "Because there are any
number of substitutes."  

"I think there's another reason linked to the product that it's to be had with, namely,
milk," said Om. "You can't, for instance, have cereal with dal, though I wonder why
not! It's all a matter of serving and positioning it. Come to think of it, Maggi is
essentially a commodity. You can have it the way the manufacturer prescribes or do
your own thing, with Maggi as the core and garnishes of vegetables, minced meat or
eggs.  

"But as I said, the suggestion of the how to' has to come from you. Since it has to go
with milk, there are any number of substitutes -- cocoa, Bournvita, Rooh Afza,
chocolate or rose syrups, and even oats. Milk goes well with so many of them. And in
any case your product is only a supplement."

Om felt it was not just a question of what to eat'. It was also a question of when to
eat' that went into the perspective of planning. "Take the case of Mother Dairy's Aloo
Tikki," said Om. "It is a ready-to-eat tikki, can be had anytime. But unusually, as I have
seen, people examine the pack, are amazed it is ready to eat, but usually put it back
because there is no message which comes with the product which suggests when it can
be eaten! Strange isn't it? An aloo tikki is staple Indian diet, but the minute it comes in
a packaged form, if you don't suggest when to eat it, the impetus to buy and consume
it is not there. I think you need to tell the woman that she needs a ready-to-serve
emergency snack, you need to position yourself into her habits -- only then does she
start viewing you with interest."

"Or take Milkmaid condensed milk," continued Om. "It didn't move when it was sold as
condensed milk, the consumer received no suggestions on how else it could be used.
Since in its commodity form she had not much use for it, the purchase was very
limited. But once the suggestions came, and mind you, these were suggestions that
fitted themselves into the consumer's habits, the purchases shot up. The same thing
happened with tomato puree. It is such a fundamental ingredient, but they all said
tomato made easy'. But once they started talking about good-looking Rajma, smart-
looking aloo mutter, the puree moved out of the store shelves into the kitchen."Talking
of habits, Om suggested that Aadesh take a look at the new habits in food preparation,
storage and eating. "The newest preoccupation today is microwave cooking," he said.
"For some time, the woman rejected the microwave because she was convinced Indian
food did not lend itself to microwave cooking methods. But when the heating
attributes of microwave began to appear overwhelming, some of them purchased it.
Then arose this notion that refrigerated food is not as tasty when it is reheated. True
or not, there it is. But that little bit of instant ginger paste or tomato puree when
added to my reheating process is perceived as refreshing the food! It's amazing, but it
is in fact true. For the fragrances come alive and the dal is no more yesterday's
leftover. And this is so common to Indian households -- this whole process of re-tadka.
You have leftover dal, you quietly chop up some onion, fry it in ghee with ginger and
garlic and throw it into the withering old dal and, presto, it comes alive.

So what has happened? Tomato puree and ginger pastes became generic commodities
which could be used to refresh food. Essentially they enabled the housewife to
reposition the old dal with a few touches to its basic personality!"

Fair enough, thought Aadesh. "But where does Healthee cereals come into this?" he
asked.
"You need to learn from the evolution of these products," said Om. "Thus, you can
expand Healthee's market if you also address the 'when' issue. But few marketers are
doing that. Everyone who is marketing cereal is harping on the same usage attributes:
health, nutrition and breakfast. No one is suggesting the 'when' aspect, and that is
what is required to grow the market. If the consumer does not eat cereal anyway,
Healthee will never appear on her purchase list," said Om. "But if you can find
innumerable situations in her life where the cereal can readily fit itself, she will buy
the cereal for those other situations too and willy-nilly also have some of it
occasionally at breakfast, because it is there anyway!"

Om went back to his favorite example of Maggi noodles. "As a pasta it could have got
stuck in the lunch mould, but NestlŽ deftly sidelined that and bravely said, 'Anytime'.
And mind you, Maggi came 15 years ago, when the Indian was far from adventurous
about food. Maggi's maximum consumption is between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. which is
typically the time when you are looking for an emergency snack. It is also the time
when you have a madly hungry child on your hands, homework done and an appetite
that is soaring and your good sense is preventing you from giving him a samosa or a
series of dosas or biscuits because he has to eat dinner by 7 and you want him
adequately hungry by then. So what do you give him? Maggi and milk!"

Om was of the view that the new millennium was the era for change, for innovation,
adaptation, the era for creating a revolution in worldwide food habits. "You have gone
into the standard mould of putting the cereal in the breakfast basket," he said. "But
the issue that emerges is, are you looking at the 'when' and the 'how' and the 'how-
else'? It is for you to generate the 'how elses' if you want to grow the market. For,
believe me, market share can be won only by those who can grow the market, not by
the me-toos."

As far as he could see, cereals were a commodity, like noodles and tomato puree. "It is
for you to create the magic with new 'how tos," said Om. "If it becomes her core
ingredient to innovate with, be sure your product has entered the kitchen of every
housewife for good. Your cereal has to transcend to the level of becoming an
ingredient in the housewife's recipe book. Leave it to her to innovate by showing her
that your product is but an add-on for nutrition and health. For that is what a cereal is
ultimately. But right now you and Kellogg's are simply saying 'eat breakfast with milk',
thereby restricting usage. Naturally, away from breakfast and milk, the cereal will
have no salience."

The other issue, felt Om, was that food was being marketed and researched by men,
not women. "This is a country where the woman is the predominant creator of food.
She does it for a living!" he said. "When food companies leave the product research
and adaptation to women, the market will grow. The way she re-tadkas the dal, or
crumbles stale bread and chapatis to create a mesmerising upma, the way she
alternates her rasam with lime once, tamarind the next time, tomatoes the third
time... the way she stuffs capsicum with cheese rice... If you understand the poetry
that food is, you will be able to write new verses."

Om was confident that anybody entering the foods market must learn the 'how' and
the 'when' and the 'how-else' aspects of food if they want to grow the market.
Innovation was the key. "If you tap the actual usage of bread," said Om, "what share of
it is used as plain bread vis-a-vis in other forms? The traditional form of bread is
toasted and buttered. But in India you even have bread pakora, shahi tukra, bread
upma... The innovation in breads over time is what is responsible for the acceptance
of bread as a product in India. It is not an original Indian product, just as cornflakes
and condensed milk are not. So, take your cue from bread if you want Healthee to
grow," he said.

As they got into their respective cars, Om said: " Remember Aadesh, no market share
wars are won without growing the market and you can do that when you create new
uses for the same product and for that you need to delve into the habits of people. In
the beginning there is a fundamental habit of eating. Now go ahead and stimulate
desire!"