Horlicks is a brand of GlaxoSmithKline, a British multinational pharmaceutical, biologics and healthcare company. It has been a popular brand since its inception in 1930. Till 1992, Horlicks was a single brand, it was then it diversified into brand extension and launched its biscuits in two flavors i.e. Elaichi and Standard. Later in year 1995, they launched Junior Horlicks in vanilla and chocolate flavors for toddlers which was directed towards a niche segment. Horlicks went under a major brand equity shift in 2003 positioning Horlicks strongly as a children’s drink rather a family drink. Subsequently it launched Horlicks Lite, a low fat variant and less sugar variant alternative. It revamped its brand image, with …show more content…
a noodles and snacks segment. However at the same time, the attempt to get into biscuits segment still huge potential to tap, but the noodles segment which are mainly driven by the taste are difficult to complete with the biggies of Nestle and ITC. In case of Foodles, their Brand Extension strategy actually resulted in the over extension of the brand Horlicks both from the perspective of wasted effort and long term dilution of the mother brand Horlicks. Since, the health drink brand was being perceived as a heath food brand so the customers were left in a dissonance state with the launch of Noodles under Horlicks. Moreover, GSK’s plan to promote the product with the base of strong scientific propositions and clinical studies didn’t worked in the noodles business and thus it did not worked.
What should GSK do?
1. The company should first drop the “Horlicks” name from Foodles, as it doesn’t go in sync with the healthy brand name.
2. With more than 9 national players in the noodles market, and significant scope of market pie increase, GSK shall concentrate on promoting the taste component in the product.
3. Foodles shall create a niche market, capturing a small pie for itself.
4. GSK should market and promote the brand aggressively with investments on the product accessibility. In comparison with Nestle (3 million stores) and ITC (2.5 million stores) GSK reached merely 0.8 million outlets. The target should be to actively increase the product reach to at least 5 million outlets in coming 5