‘Too much butter may not always be better’ – is Britannia’s response to Amul’s dig at its competitors via a print advertisement over the amount of rich quality butter content in the cookies. If we closely monitor Amul’s print ad, the cookie design resembles a lot of Good Day butter cookies. Amul had alleged that other cookie brands in the market contain meagre amount of butter and more of vegetable oil.
#AmulButterCookie: Does your Butter Cookie contain Butter or Vegetable Oil? pic.twitter.com/5vJF7uBXBI
— Amul.coop (@Amul_Coop) July 21, 2019
It went a step further and asked netizens to share pictures of other butter cookies with the percentage of butter in its ingredients mentioned behind the packs with a hashtag #AsliButterCookie. The snaps included the likes of Britannia, Parle Products, ITC, Unibic and many more.
#AmulButterCookie Challenge#ContestAlert
1️⃣Share pictures of any brand of butter cookies pack which you have purchased2️⃣Mention the butter content in it in your post
3️⃣Post pic with #AsliButterCookie #Amul
— Amul.coop (@Amul_Coop) July 21, 2019
Butter content in it is 0.6% pic.twitter.com/rabEB22M7N
— अनिरुध्द भट्ट ?? (@anirudhhabhatt) July 21, 2019
#AsliButterCookie#AmulButterCookie #Amul @Amul_Coop
Parl 20-20 butter cookies ?
Sad to know only [0.3%] Butter in it.@snow_man_14 @SujithDifferent @misssmita3 @TamandeepSinghJ @eshad1984 pic.twitter.com/FmAJwlxNKs— Aman Singh (@rathore178) July 21, 2019
Also Read: Amul Vs. all of India’s ‘butter cookies’- Karthik Srinivasan
Americana butter cookies, no butter content mentioned. #AsliButterCookie #Amul pic.twitter.com/8qm7RKG1Q0
— Rajeev K (@RajeevK32542065) July 21, 2019
Almost a month later, Britannia Good Day chose to respond to the comparison by bringing under the spotlight the consequences of consuming 25% butter leading to seven times more cholesterol.
Image Credit: Karthik Srinivasan
And finally, the empire strikes back! The big daddy of Indian biscuit empire fires the long-overdue salvo against Amul’s skirmish almost after a month! A sentence from my original post (see: Amul Vs. all of India’s ‘butter cookies’ https://t.co/xDUufe9ksf) was, “Is it healthy 1/5 pic.twitter.com/CZ5nch2z7o
— Karthik (@beastoftraal) August 16, 2019
Amul forayed into the cookie category very recently and since then has been taking a rather unusual route of marketing to firm its base in the market. Also, this is not the first time the dairy major has adapted to ambush or comparative marketing technique. When it entered into the ice-cream space, it took jibes at its competitors over how it used real milk and others are just frozen dessert with no milk and also promoted the product as ‘Real Milk, Real Ice Cream’.
Image Credit: Karthik Srinivasan
Earlier too we have seen brand wars like Colgate vs Pepsodent, Coca Cola vs Pepsi, McDonald’s vs KFC et al. Going head-on and claiming to be superior.
Now that Britannia has occupied the level playing field it will be interesting to see how Amul makes a comeback and churns out conversations leveraging different mediums. For now, we ask industry gurus about who won the butter cookie war?
Experts Take:
K.V.Sridhar, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Hyper Collective
This is top class competitive advertising. Your greediness for butter makes tongue waggle for Amul. But then comes in reality “Cholesterol”. Britannia ended the debate with one word. Top class. Really enjoyed the fight.
Naresh Gupta, CSO & Managing Partner, Bang In The Middle
Britannia is a giant and Good Day almost defines what the brand is. For Amul to create space in the category, they could either build muscle slowly, or be audacious and attack the Goliath. They attacked the Goliath. In India consumer rarely looks at the back of pack to check what the product label says. In this case I suspect Amul must have made an impact as ingredient story in food is now mainstream conversation. I like the way Britannia has hot back. Attacking butter is not easy but they have raised the cholesterol bogey. In fine print they have also managed to convey that they offer more weight in same price as Amul.
I think Amul could have been smarter. They didn’t need to go headon with Good Day. They have a different product and they have a chance of creating very different appeal. By making Good Day their focal point, they have created amusement but I don’t know how this is sustainable. They called it Butter Cookies. That’s where the appeal lies. Cookies. Not biscuits. .
Comments
comments