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Noodles
Whose noodles?
Nissin Foods is a world-wide company that makes instant ramen noodles.
It was established in Japan on September 4, 1948 by Momofuku Ando as
Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd. of Japan and ten years later introduced the
first instant ramen noodle product, Chikin Ramen (Chicken Ramen).
Instant noodles (1958) and cup noodles (1971) were both invented by
Momofuku Ando.
Since its launch the brand has been constantly changing its sales pitch
and product composition — with little success.
Top Ramen has been trying all possible marketing tools for the past 18
years to dethrone Maggi Noodles which had become a benchmark in
the category.
The Struggle…
Entry Level…
Indian consumers were used to the look and taste of Maggi noodles
which left no water in a dish and on the contrary Top Ramen was watery
which didn’t find too many takers.
Pricing…
To this end, a new campaign broke, with the adline “ Don’t be a noodle.
Be a smoodle ”. Market share climbed from 13 % in 1996 to 24 % in 1998.
With the distribution network of five lakh outlets, Maggi is miles ahead
of Top Ramen’s two-lakh outlets.
Lacking Innovation…
The major issue faced by Top Ramen was the differentiation.
Top Ramen could not offer any serious differentiation to Maggi either in
terms of the product or brand.
Since there was no serious differentiation, Maggi was able to gain back
the lost ground because it was the pioneer brand who built the category.
Top Ramen also lost out when Maggi repositioned itself in the health
platform.
Production Failure…
In 1997, Nestle’s Maggi market share over 80 per cent.
Reason for the fall in market share was not because of falling volumes
but because it has not been able to grow along with the category which
increased from 14,000 tonnes in 1998 to 17,000 tonnes in 2002.
Promotion Failure Also??
Not considered localization in the early stages.
One major factor for Maggi's success was its quick localization.
Except for the first phase of brand promotion, Top Ramen did not have
any worthwhile campaign in its 18 years of existence.
New Positioning…
Indo Nissin Foods has re-launched its Top Ramen Noodles and Cup
Noodles in a new bright international packaging.
Top Ramen added more “food value” as the product has been enriched
with vitamins and calcium which give consumers 25 per cent of their
daily requirement of calcium vitamin B1 and B2.
Target the 11 to19 years age group. This segment is the largest consumers
of instant noodles, accounting for 35 to 40 per cent of sales.
New Promotions…
Re-launched with a fresh campaign that seeks to make Top Ramen
a part of every Indian family as the ‘ little strands of happiness ’ .