Mumbai: Cadbury India is bang on its objective to launch one new major product every year. Here's a new brand offering from Cadbury India that talks directly to the target consumer: Kids. The brand in question: Milk Treat, a product constituting four wafers with a butterscotch flavoured cream enrobed in milky white chocolate.The product benefit has been defined as `the goodness of milk married to the fun of chocolate'. Targeted at children in the age group of six to nine years, this is the second exclusive offering in this segment from the Cadbury stable after Gems, which is a popular product among children.``Children are the heaviest consumers of chocolates across both metros and smaller towns. Therefore, the need for a brand that talks directly to the kids,'' says the company.
Milk Treat was felt to be the ideal product to take on this task as it combines both the good-health and nutritional values of milk along with the values of fun and excitement that kids normally associate with a Cadbury chocolate offering.
Milk Treat has currently been rolled out only in Kerala and Bangalore. The company said that the initial response of both consumers and the trade has been favourable, with sales in both states exceeding initial estimates. The product is understood to be witnessing good trials in the bigger bakeries and the supermarkets which contribute to a large part of the volumes.
Milk Treat competes with Nestle's Milky Bar in terms of the target segment, though unlike Milk Treat, Milky Bar is a moulded white chocolate. Milk Treat is priced at Rs 10 for 26 gm and the price of Milky Bar is Rs 13 for a 40 gm bar.
The company expects Milk Treat to corner a five to seven per cent market share nationally by the end of 2000. Cadbury India is also looking at the possibility of eventually extending the brand to a range of child offerings in different forms.
When Milk Treat is launched nationally, the product will be supported across various media and the advertising would seek to establish the dual platform for the brand: "The goodness of milk and the fun of chocolates".
In addition to a heavy presence in the mass media (TV and Press), innovative ground level activity is expected to be unleashed that would establish direct contact with the target consumer.
The on-ground activity is expected to initiate an element of interaction in the marketing package, whereby the brand talks directly to the child. The marketing package is being designed so as to establish contact with the child at multiple touch points in his lifespace. The move is attempted at making Milk Treat the most salient chocolate brand for children.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.