Monaco: Cracker of a brand

Celebrated chef Tarla Dalal’s website has a section dedicated to recipes with this biscuit. It is famously multipurpose; it can be served with toppings as canapés,had with dips, sandwiched with filling, deep fried with batter to make crispy pakoras, and crushed to crumb cutlets. Monaco biscuits, a product of the Mumbai-headquartered Parle group, have completed 75 years since their arrival into Indian homes and offices.

Monaco has even earned a place in Dalal’s glossary too: “A light and crispy biscuit sprinkled with salt, Monaco adds a namkeen twist to the sweet dominated biscuit world. The salty taste is well-balanced and is liked by kids and adults alike. It can be had any time of the day, and with anything.”

Anytime, anywhere: The salted cracker was pitched as a multipurpose snack that can be had with various toppings and a light and easy-to-carry refreshment for those on the go

Knowingly or unknowingly, Dalal summed up the reasons behind Monaco’s success long before she passed away in 2013. The biscuit today commands a quarter of the ₹1,900-crore salted biscuit industry in India and has no close rival.

“In the Indian context, there are some biscuit brands which I would call heritage biscuits. It is not about the number of years a brand has been around, but the consumers across generations who have loved it, and possibly still love it. Monaco comes under those heritage brands,” says Harish Bijoor of the eponymous brand consultancy firm.

For Monaco, the journey from one generation to another has been one of continuous transformation — not of the product, but the brand. When it was launched in 1942, Parle came in a tin or foil pack and targeted the elite consumers. “The historic communication was targeted at affluent housewives and kitty parties. It was more about offering an option as there was no other salted cracker in the market. We positioned it as a snack that you could not only have on its own, but was also a great accompaniment with tea and could be had with toppings,” says Mayank Shah, category head at Parle.

That positioning of Monaco changed after Independence. People were stepping out of homes to work and there was a need to munch on something when food was not immediately in sight. That was Monaco — the common man’s snack that could keep hunger at bay for a few hours. “By the 1950s, Monaco became a convenience snack as it was easy to carry around. That was the era when savoury snacks were still made at home or were available only at farsan shops. We started pushing Monaco as a namkeen, and by the 1960s it had become a snack for all,” says Shah.

One of the biggest strengths of Monaco, says Bijoor, is the consistency of the brand, apart from the product being a very unique, crispy, salted offering. “It has been globally recognised as a biscuit of repute and has tried to remain very contemporary,” he says.

As Monaco made its way into almost every Indian household, team Parle did not choose to sit back and watch. “People considered toppings an elaborate affair, but in the 1980s, we undertook campaigns to tell consumers that topping could be something as simple as grated cheese or flavoured hung-curd with some veggies. That was even before the two-minute noodles took over kitchens,” Shah recollects.

And, cleverly, as India became obsessed with health and fitness in the 1990s, Parle promoted Monaco biscuit as a light snack with the tagline — “ Halke phulke Monaco, halke phulke palon ke liye ”. But competition soon flooded in, as a range of other snacks entered the market in a liberalised economy.

“So around 2005, we started promoting it as a fun product. Rather than talking about light biscuit, we moved to lighter moments in life and changed the positioning to “ life namkeen banaiye” — take a break from monotonous life and make it lighter,” Shah adds.

This tagline has stayed with the company for over a decade now, and with good reason. At a time when people are constantly talking about work-life balance, Monaco again seems to have struck the right chord. “Monaco is now a staple for Indian consumers. It is a value-for-money snack and they have maintained a continued brand freshness,” says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight, a consultancy firm.

But Shah is not content with Monaco being a staple. “The challenge is to stay relevant in changing times when discerning consumers have so many options. We have been coming out with variants (jeera and cheese), which are snackable. We will continue to innovate in our journey ahead,” says Shah.

Bijoor is as confident as Shah about the strength of brand Monaco. “It is a taste-led offering that can be reasonably perennial. This is a cocktail market and there is no reason why Monaco must not be stocked in every bar or be part of every cocktail party, ” he says.

That’s a clue for Shah. Heritage brands need contemporary touch, and team Parle has its task cut out even now, 75 years after Monaco was born.

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