Businesses have their rivals. Jio has Airtel as its rival, Coca Cola has Pepsi, and McDonald’s has Burger King. But, what about Amul?
Amul is one of the few brands which hardly has any competitors that can level the brand’s popularity. But, how did Amul achieve such greatness?
In this blog post, we’ll decode Amul’s brilliant business and Amul Digital marketing strategy using which Amul became second to none in the dairy industry.
About Amul:
Amul isn’t a traditional public or private company, it’s a cooperative organization. The name Amul, which stands for Anand Milk Union Limited, was established 77 years ago in 1946 by milk producers of Gujarat.
The organisation, which is based in Anand, is owned and controlled by 3.6 million milk producers across the state of Gujrat. It was the organization that brought the White Revolution to the country and helped to establish India as the leading milk producer all over the world.
Apart from 3.6 million milk producers who supply milk to the factories, more than 1000 employees work in the factory and offices.
Today, Amul has spread its business beyond traditional dairy items. They also sell products like ice cream, chocolate, flavored drinks and even sports drinks.
Amul market evaluation:
Amul as a brand, has a distinct brand image and has its own strengths and weaknesses. In this section, we’ll explore what are the strength and weaknesses Amul has in its business.
Strength:
Brand Image: As we said before, Amul has established a clear brand image throughout the years. When you think of dairy products, you can’t help your mind but think of Amul.
Quality of products: Being an FMCG brand, Amul takes the highest care of its products to ensure product quality, freshness, taste and most importantly hygiene. Amul has been doing that since its inception. They were the first dairy brand certified with ISO 22000 & ISO 9001 for Food Safety Management and Quality Management respectively.
Supply chain and distribution network: Most of the Amul products (e.g.: Amul Dahi (Curd), fresh milk, Amul Taaza) that are made using raw milk, expire as quickly as 2-7 days.
That’s why a brand like Amul selling these products needs to have a strong supply chain and a stronger distribution network to get the packaged food delivered to even the rural parts of the country within the least possible time.
Amul has created a strong pan-India supply chain. They even have their distribution network spread in foreign countries like the United States, UAE, Quarter, etc.
Weaknesses:
Dependency: As a brand Amul is highly dependent on its milk producers. If somehow any major disruptions happen in the supply of raw milk, Amul’s manufacturing is likely to be impacted.
Premium products: Amul is certainly the king of dairy products produced for the masses. But when it comes to premium products, Amul somehow lacks that.
Price fluctuations: The price of raw milk keeps changing every now and then. But, Amul can’t change the price of their packaged products accordingly. Even if they do, it can impact the sales as the market is quite sensitive to price.
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Amul rural & marketing strategies:
When Amul was founded in 1946, more than 80% of the Indian population was living in rural areas. For their success, Amul couldn’t underestimate the rural area. They made their best strategies to capture the rural market.
Capturing the rural market:
Amul established itself as a brand that didn’t solely make its products for urban elites, but rather a brand that should be accessible to all. They made their products affordable for the masses, they updated and made their distribution channels strong and they also set up partnerships with local distributors.
Amul target market:
Amul made lower to middle-income groups coming from its target customers, be it from urban areas or rural areas. Needless to say, this is the customer segment that has been dominating the Indian consumer market since our independence.
Marketing strategies:
THE AMUL GIRL:
An ad created in the year 1966 and still running now! – Presenting the Amul girl, a kid holding a piece of bread covered with butter in one hand and licking the other hand.
The Amul Girl is one of the longest-running ads that had a profound impact on Amul’s success. This appealing ad was drawn by Sylvester DaCunha and has been the official mascot of Amul since then.
She is featured on every packet of Amul butter.
Amul Digital Marketing Strategy:
Going beyond the offline market, Amul is now expanding its businesses in the digital world.
Amul has built its presence in classic e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, and Flipkart as well as instant food delivery platforms like BlinkIt, Bigbasket, and JioMart. These platforms have enabled Amul products to reach to public as quickly as possible.
Amul SEO Strategy:
Amul’s official website performs quite well in organic search results. It has over 317k backlinks and receives almost a million traffic each month through search engines.
However, the purpose behind Amul’s website is to let their customers know about their products, brand and nutritional facts of their products rather than being an e-commerce site.
Amul Social Media Marketing Strategy:
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter – Amul is present in all popular social media platforms with a massive fan base.
Amul’s Twitter (X) account has more than 3.69 lakh followers, while Amul’s Instagram has more than 4.3 lakh followers.
Amul’s most popular social media handle is Amul’s FB profile where it has more than 2 million followers. Amul uses these social media handles to promote their products through creative infographics, cartoons and graphics.
Amul’s post on IG on India’s T20 World Cup winning
2024 T20 World Cup – A Master Move by Amul:
As an initiative to promote their products in foreign countries, Amul has sponsored South Africa in the 2024 T20 World Cup. Cricket is a popular sport in South Africa, Amul has gotten wider recognition among cricket fans of South Africa.
As the World Cup was held in the USA and West Indies, the brand also got promoted in the aforesaid countries too.
Conclusion:
Through the online and widespread offline distribution system, Amul has become the No.1 dairy brand in not only India but the whole world. We hope that this blog post featuring Amul market analysis has been informational and worth reading.
