McDowell’s No 1 serenades urban youth with ‘Yaari’ campaign

In late 2014, McDowell’s No 1 Soda launched a campaign called ‘No1Yaari’ with a 7-minute film carried along by a Mohit Chauhan song. ‘Yaari’, for the purposes of its repositioning exercise, meant ‘friendship’ with the added nuance of ‘brotherhood’. And earlier this year, one of the brand’s recent digital-first campaigns during the 2016 T20 Cricket World Cup, ‘Yaari Nibhao, Jeet Manao’ was also aimed at millenials. These efforts were a part of the change from the brand’s earlier positioning of ‘Asli Yaari’, and has reportedly been able to consolidate the McDowell’s No 1 foothold in India while bringing in returns on investment.

“It has been close to five years since the brand saw a facelift. Our consumers evolve, the category evolves, things change and so it was high time. The repositioning exercise has worked well… We’re seeing marketshare and battleshare gains,” said Subroto Geed, Senior Vice-President, Marketing at United Spirits.

At United Spirits (a Diageo Group company), Geed heads the marketing efforts for the Prestige Core range of products comprising of McDowell’s No 1, Royal Challenge, Antiquity Blue and Signature. McDowell’s No 1 whiskey is considered an entry level product in the Prestige Core range. McDowell’s No 1 Soda is, of course, the extension that enables the company to speak to its consumers.

“In line with our next generation marketing philosophy, we needed to consider our four Ps — Purpose, Personalisation, Partnerships and Performance. And we believe that brands which are endearing to consumers have a purpose at heart. Our purpose was to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood or ‘yaari’ among young urban consumers,” Geed said.The brand purpose was supposedly influenced by the observation that older family structures are dismantling in modern India. Young people are moving out of their homes for work or study. As they do so, they “start to find a new family in their friends… a new safety net, even mentor network”. Along the way, insights from neuroscience testing conducted on urban youth helped United Spirits tweak even the packaging of McDowell’s No 1 to fit the repositioning.

The focus on millennials had to play out in a consistent, coherent manner to help bring about brand recall. Geed revealed that McDowell’s No 1 Soda’s repositioning “got us three times the value of our investments.” Without going into product-specific sales numbers, he said the recent digital engagements had significantly reflected on ROI.

A Facebook Live event during the T20 Cricket World Cup had youth icons, TV hosts and friends Manish Paul and Rannvijay Singh helping to deepen the ‘yaari’ connect. Within four hours of activity, it garnered just under a million views, according to Geed’s team, even though sponsored posts aren’t allowed on Facebook Live.

“How the content we put out or the content generated by consumers themselves in digital campaigns is doing is an important measure. And we achieve this through personalisation, like we did with that Facebook Live initiative,” Geed said, highlighting the Personalisation and Performance facets of ‘next generation marketing’.

The company claims, with rum, brandy and whiskey included, its current total sales stands at 53.2 million cases in India. In the Prestige Whisky Segment, McDowell’s No 1 is gaining share by 0.4 per cent (Source: Nielsen RMS Jan ’16). Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab are big markets for the brand, while the company manufactures its products in 88 facilities across the country.

“Every year India adds close to about 90 million legal age drinkers. For McDowell’s No 1, target consumers are those who upgrade from popular segments or those who move from drinking only beer,” Geed added.

COMMENT NOW