Abstract

When Perfetti Van Melle (India) Pvt. Ltd. (PVMI), the wholly-owned subsidiary of the world’s third largest confectionery company Perfetti Van Melle S.p.A. (PVM), launched Mentos in India it realized that the global positioning of the brand was not cutting much ice with the Indian audience. Globally, Mentos was PVM’s biggest brand and the world’s second largest confectionery brand. It was marketed on the ‘freshness’ platform with the pay-off line ‘The Freshmaker’. In India, after initially extending the global positioning of the brand, the company adapted the commu-nication strategy to position Mentos as a fun brand with advertisements (ads) created by Ogilvy & Mather India Ltd. (O&M) in 2003. Some very creative ad campaigns followed, which, along with other online initiatives such as the award-winning Mentos Helpline, helped make Mentos a strong brand in the low-value, low-margin, fragmented sugar confectionery market in India.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand how the European confectionery major Perfetti Van Melle made Mentos a big brand in the Indian sugar confectionery market
• Understand the pros and cons of extending the global communication strategy of a brand to new markets vis-à-vis adapting the commu-nication strategy to suit local preferences
• Understand the issues and challenges in devising a communication strategy for a low involvement product
• Understand the pros and cons of using different appeals in advertising and in using different ad formats
• and Appreciate the importance of advertising in influencing consumer behavior especially in products that are bought on impulse.

Keywords

Marketing communication, Communication strategy, Advertising, Creativity, Positioning, Brand building, Pay-off line, Awareness, Brand recall, Jingle, Consumer behavior, Socioeconomic classification, Involvement, Personality, Social networking, Click through rate, Word-of-mouth, Perfetti Van Melle, Confectionery, Cadbury, Wrigley