Eating out Vs Eating In

Eating out is a favorite to many isn't it? On this premise let me take you through the kind of foreign invasions into the Indian Sub Continent - Food I'm referring to. From Corn Flakes, to Cereals, Instant Noodles to Pizza's, burgers... invasion into the conservative, non committal Indian consumers. The consumers were delighted at the crunchy corn flakes to the soft noodles, to the mouth watering yummy pizzas to the filled up burgers...
Yet, after so many years of their invasion the Pizza has become a hit and the corn flakes market never took off to the sizable proportions it was intended to grow! My perception and analysis goes with the right placement of the product to the Indian Consumer made the difference. We as Indians, be it any part of this vast subcontinent have been habituated to a prescribed form of cooking our daily break fast, be it the idli, dosa, upma, pongal of the south, or the roti, jelebi, sweet lassi of the north, or the dokla, khamund, papad, poha, vada pav of the west, or the samosa, kachori, rasgolla of the east, or even the early morning bread, butter, jam and milk for everyone. For generations this has been the mainstream breakfast across the age groups, this is what has been cooked at home, and had by all of us since childhood. Now to break this kind of breakfast staple, Corn Flakes were introduced by Kellogg's, Worlds largest cereal foods producer and marketeer. The primary aim of this company was to replace the daily dose of authentic home food with the neatly packaged corn flakes in boxes of various sizes and flavors. What perhaps went wrong was the Pricing, one of the four P's of marketing. Since the pricing was on the expensive side, the rising middle class thought it to be an aspirational break fast cereal only for the affluent few. Apart from this was the hesitance by the consumers to switch over to healthy, nutritious food supplements over their regular break fast food. Inspite of the best effort by the company to attract consumers of over a billion population,be it by better distribution channels or bringing in variety, it has not reached upto the levels it reached in other countries. This is primarily because of the conservation and economy levels of the target audience. The pricing is too high for any middle class house holder to feed entire family with Cereals on a daily basis, reasons - Milk, Sugar, Fruits, and then Corn Flakes themselves are expensive.
Moving on, Pizza has become a house hold name atleast in the metros, tier I and Tier II cities where a plethora of outlets from Pizza hut, Pizza Corner, Domino's to multi cuisine restaurants mushroomed in order to offer it.
Pizza took the place of a evening snack, were the consumer is variety seeking to fill his/her stomach in between meals, this cord has rightly struck the college goers, after office snacking out, or evening stroll to the nearest pizza corner by a family or just by ordering it over a phone & getting it delivered home piping hot. Though the cost of eating Pizza is quite expensive compared to the evening chat center snacks, this is offset by the group/individuals as seeking variety, taste, ambiance etc.,
Pizza finds its prominence in the kind of pricing it delivers to the consumers through combo offers, US Pizza for example came out with Unlimited pizza for 199/- which was carried out nation wide, this was a super hit consumer promotion. Similarly others too followed suite and now around 25% of the revenues for these branded pizza outlets come from combo offers only. The branded pizza outlets also extended into making the consumers log on to their respective websites for exiting offers to be redeemed at the outlets. All in all pizza has hit the right cord with the consumers over the years. The only reason being, Pizza never meant to replace a meal, dish, staple diet of consumers, it entered as a snack people would relish with variety and it clicked.
Perhaps the rising middle class has to rise upto the Corn Flakes as a early morning breakfast, that is the reason why some local manufactures brought in corn flakes at affordable rate-Mohan's Brand of corn flakes are bland, single flavor, economical and come in bulk quantities.
Be it Pizza or Corn Flakes, any kind of misinterpretation with the four P's of Marketing will lead into a lot of trouble for International brands venturing into the most fastest growing economies of the world - Brand India Inc.,