Magge Marketing Strategy

Maggie was launched in India as a 2 minute noodle brand in 1983 when Indian consumers were quite conservative about their food habits and preferred traditional Indian food over canned or packaged food. Today, India is one of the fastest growing market for snack and Maggie was estimated to have 70% share in the market. It almost doubled its size from 2010(2940 million units) to to 2014(5340 million units). It contributed 30% to the Nestle’s 9000 crore annual turnover. Starting off as a snack for children, Maggie quickly expanded its consumer base to include students and young professionals and was even available in the most inaccessible parts of India. The adds of Maggie became so popular that the tagline of “bas 2 minutes” instantly reminded them of Maggie.

At the end of May, Indian food inspectors ordered Nestle India to call recall a batch of the noodles

Maggi is dominant because it has almost single-handedly ushered in an openness to new food ideas. It represented the exciting but accessible taste of modernity, in a form that was both new and familiar, and in a format that made it possible for everyone to cook up something delicious quickly. It gave mothers, harassed about getting some food down the throats of their recalcitrant children, a weapon that seemed to work every time.

It wasn 't seen as the healthiest food around, but mothers found a way around that by rationalising that they made it healthier by adding their own special ingredients. In many ways, Maggi was an open source idea, well before we started talking about that concept, as everyone developed their own special Maggi recipes.

That is the strongest reason why Nestle will, in all probability, bounce back. The brand is owned by consumers and they have a stake in its success.

It helps that the Indian consumer tends to be forgiving, and the flip side of the intense media attention the brand has received lately is that its moment in the sun will pass, and some other source of outrage will