KELLOGS FAILURE IN INDIA

Since 1906, Kelloggs became the top most cereal company in world. Kelloggs success changed people breakfast habit with eating cereal. Kelloggs products now become more global because a lot of people consume it. Since Kelloggs foundation, there so many rival or competitors from other cereal company in United State. Kelloggs has to became struggle in order to make their product survive. From this problem, Kelloggs take their own path with try to expand their product into global marketing. On 1990, Kelloggs invest a lot of money in India. When Kelloggs first launched Corn Flakes in India it was essentially launching a Western product attempting to appeal to Indian tastes ( Haig,2006). Kelloggs aimed that India people majority came from middle class and this people affords to buy their product. But, when it came to India, Kelloggs has to face certain culture problems. Besides, India doesnt same as the other western country. The culture and custom his people became the challenges for Kelloggs. To list Kelloggs failure in India, there are five reasons why Kelloggs has been rejected by the Indian peoples. First, Indian breakfast is heavy, India breakfast is non for its variety, Indian loves spicy and hot food rather to change it with cereal, Kelloggs wrong campaign advertisement and finally is Indian people like to consume food with hot milk different with Kelloggs product that need to consume with cold milk.

Refer to Saikat Banerjee (2008) in his article Dimension of Indian Culture, core cultural values and marketing implications: An analysis, consumption decision made in the market cannot be viewed as an independent event- these are closely related with values and social relationship and cultural allegiance. National culture has considerable influence on consumer behavior (Jaishankar, 1998). In 1871, Tylor define culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Dimensions of Indian Culture, core cultural Values and marketing implications: An analysis, Saikat Banerjee, Vol. 15 Iss: 4 pp. 367 378). The main point that Im trying to show is, Kelloggs failure in India is related to Indian culture. Kelloggs didnt research on Indian culture well before enter Indian market. 1) Kelloggs cereal doesnt match with Indian breakfast According to Dr. M. Anil Ramesh (2011), Kellogg pitched itself as an alternative to the regularly consumed breakfast. The Indian breakfast is very heavy. By taking a heavy meal during breakfast, there is a feeling of fullness at the end of an Indians breakfast. For example, Indians eat oily Parantas, Puris and Dosas during breakfast. These types of food give a real feeling of fullness to Indians at the end of an Indians breakfast. It is too different with Kelloggs Corn flakes breakfast. By taking a Kelloggs Corn flakes for breakfast, Indians dont satisfy. It is because a Kelloggs Corn flakes breakfast does not give a real feeling of fullness at the end of Indians breakfast. The Indian still feel hungry after having corn flakes during breakfast. This situation make the Indian preferred to eat their own food which is oily Parantas, Puris and Dosas for breakfast. Taking a heavy meal during breakfast is one of Indian culture that has not

understanding by Kelloggs. There are implication between culture and market. The failure to understanding of Indian culture brings to the failure of Kelloggs in India 2) Indian people rich with variety food Furthermore, Indians breakfast is known for its variety (Dr. M. Anil Ramesh, 2008). The Indians love to eat a variety of food during breakfast. In India, there is a restaurant which is at Hyderabad that offers 99 types of Dosas or Idlis and Parantas. For more sure, the item (food) that has been eaten will not be offer for next two or three weeks. Kelloggs offer the same type of corn flake every day. According to Dr. M. Anil Ramesh, asking Indians to have the same type of corn flake based breakfast was too much of a cultural change for the Indians to accept. The Indians are very concerned with culture. To make a change and make Indian accept a new culture is difficult. Eating cereal during breakfast is something new to Indians. Indians mostly eat a bowl of vegetable as a concept of their breakfast. For sure, we can refer to Sunanda K. Chavan point in Brand Culture Failure-Kelloggs in India article. According to Sunanda K.Chavan (2010), the Indian sub-continent found the whole concept of eating breakfast cereal a new one. Indeed, the most common way to start the day in India was with a bowl of hot vegetables. Its meant Kelloggs company negligent in marketing strategy in India. Kelloggs had only focus to promote its product in India. Kelloggs company supposes to be also promoting the idea to eat cereal during breakfast to Indians. The Indians should be exposed to the good of eating cereal during breakfast.

3) Price is too high for Indian people Apart from not understanding the culture of India, Kelloggs also failed because of the selling price for the product. The product is too expensive. An average cost of Rs.21 every 100gm (Debapriya Chakraborty, 1009). The pricing of Kelloggs product was higher than traditional rivals. According to Debapriya Chakraborty (2009), Indian consumer base of 950 million which is 250 million were middle class. Kelloggs pricing was unsuitable for the middle class consumer in India. It was too expensive for Indian to buy even Indians liked the product. The consumer in India bought the product as one off. There is a difference between women in India and US (United State) and UK (United Kingdom). Mostly women in India are a house wives while in US and UK women are working or have a career. It is meant a quick breakfast like eating cereal is suitable for women in US and UK. But in India, women consider to cook a very tasty food for their family during breakfast. So, a quick breakfast like corn flakes did not much go with Indian women ( Debapriya Chakraborty, 2009).

4) Kelloggs wrong campaign advertisement When we are talking about marketing, good strategy and understanding of people cultural should not be neglected. The successful of one brand is rely on how their doing the campaign in order to increase the level of consumer. Same goes to Kelloggs in India tried to sell breakfast cereals as a healthier alternative to the heavy Indian breakfast (Mooji, 2004). In India, Kelloggs advertisement campaign was only focus on the healthy aspects. Kelloggs positioned itself as a healthy breakfast substitute (Kumar,2009). The advertisement clear showed how cereal Kelloggs is contents a lot of nutrition. This is means that Indian people breakfast meal that their consumed every day was not good. As we do understand, Indian meals for breakfast are totally heavy if we want to compare it with people from State. This is proved to be anti-cultural in terms of selling the concept (Kumar,2009). This concept totally hurt Indian housewives because the sentiment of healthy. They was doing the breakfast meals for their family for decades but finally Kelloggs advertisement make them feel that their doing something wrong in foods. The concept of corn flake as the breakfast meals is indeed rejected by the Indian people. According to Sen C.T (2004), Most Middle-class Indian eat two main meals a day, supplemented by one or two smaller meals. In rural areas, the main meals are hearty breakfastBreakfast often consist of food left over from the previous days dinner or bread served with vegetables. However, Western-style breakfast of toast, eggs, or prepared breakfast cereals are becoming standard in middle-class urban households.

Kelloggs is to over confident with expand their branch to India without understand totally about Indian people that their targeted as the consumer for Kelloggs cereal. Indian people is usually started their day with the heavy meals and with the cereal advertisement that Kelloggs offered to Indian people as the healthy breakfast is wrong. The failure in campaign their advertisement finally brings to the sensitivity of Indian peoples. Kelloggs think that they were huge company in the West and if they can sell their product in West, so do India. In fact, that Indian people was too different from West peoples from food cultures.

5) Indian people like to consume hot milk According to Jain & Gulati (2010), Indians like hot milk with their cereal, and Kelloggs cereal, which is made for cold milk, couldnt stand up to hot milk. Only after revamping its product and making a cereal suitable for hot milk did Kelloggs become profitable in India. For Kelloggs, it is a challenge that they have to face with Indian people. Kelloggs found it is difficult to understand the Indian market as they use cold milk concept to combine with cereal as the breakfast. Indian traditions believe that consume hot milk should be preferred especially for breakfast because it gives strength to start a day. For them serving cold milk was regarded as unhealthy. Homi Bhabha in Chavan, Gourney, Prabhu & Arora, (2009) says that, Kelloggs set up a branch in India and started producing cornflakes...What they didnt realize was that Indians, rather like the Chinese, think that to start the day with something coldlike cold milk on your cerealis a shock to the system,..And if you pour warm milk on Kelloggs Corn Flakes, they instantly turn into wet paper.

From this we can says that, the Indian culture is synonym with taking something hot in early morning. However, Kelloggs corn Flakes have to be consumed with cold milk. Indians have been taught right from their childhood that milk has to be consumed every day and that milk should always be consumed hot not cold one. Its seems relevant for Western countries to consume cold milk but not for India. If the milk is bad once it is heated it will become undrinkable. So for the Indian family eating corn flakes with cold milk was not relevant. If their want to eat the cereal in the morning, thats mean they have to pour it with the hot milk. Once hot milk is poured the corn flakes become soggy and there are no longer tasty and edible.

REFERENCE Kumar S.R (2009). Consumer Behaviour And Branding: Concepts, Readings and Cases- The Indian Context. (p.462). Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd., De Mooji M.K. (2004). Consumer Behaviour and Culture: Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising.(p.17). Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd, B-42, Panchsheel Enclave, New Delhi 110017 India. Sen C.T(2004). Food Culture in India. (p.82). Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881, United States. Jain . D & Gulati A.D.(2010). Winning Strategies for the Indian Market. (p.9). Northwestern University Press. Haigh. M. (2006). Brand Failures : The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time. 525 South 4th Street, #241, Philadelphia PA 19147 USA Chavan A.L, Gorney.D, Prabhu.B, & Arora.S.(2009). The Need For Companies To Change Their Ways : The Washing Machine That Ate My Sari-Mistakes in Cross-Cultural Design.