The Swiss confection

It was a tour of “Real India” for Patrice Bula, global head of Sales and Marketing, Nestle last week as he moved from megapolis Mumbai to tier 2 city Nagpur, onwards to small town Kamptee and then finally Ramtek with a population of just 25,000 people.

“I came here to meet the people who make India and who make Nestle India,” says Bula. And now that he has caught the pulse of the consumer action here, he is heading back to headquarters at Vevey, Switzerland, with his head reeling at the complexity of the Indian market.

This was brought home sharply to Bula when he visited a middle-class home in Mumbai and peeped into the fridge. “I found there was this very expensive box of chocolates and some cheap sweets as well,” he exclaims, describing how he spent time quizzing the housewife on everything from how she prepared food to what prompted the apparel and electronic goods purchases. “You see first-hand how people make choices on certain foods, their buying decisions, how entertainment is so important to them … You see the contradictions in the way they make choices, the reality of people here,” he says.

India's famous jugaad has also taken him by surprise. It was an eye-opener for him to see the way the Nestle sales team used special hand-held devices while taking orders from small kirana stores in tiny towns.

“It's such a simple and efficient way. You key in what the retailer wants and the information gets transmitted. You see a combination of high technology and pragmatism and how well it works in the retailing system here,” he says.

“There is more marketing and selling creativity in vibrant markets like India, China, Indonesia and Brazil than in Europe,” he says.

Takeaways from India

Bula says it has now become imperative to visit India regularly. “To get India into your head, you cannot just visit once,” he says. And India has given him plenty of food for thought – he's going back with customer insights and marketing innovations that he says can be used in other markets.

Two examples from India that Nestle will be using globally are the Kit Kat squirrel advertising and the social media campaign created for Nescafe using Deepika Padukone. “These are very relevant models for us to use in a few markets in Europe,” he says.

All very well, but what is Bula bringing for India? Will Nestle be opening its vast treasure chest of products and let Indian consumers get their hands on them?

He only smiles enigmatically. But from the broad hints during our long conversation, it's evident that Nestle thinks India is ready now for a taste of affordable luxury in foods. “We have done very well in India in the mass market, now it's time to bring the best of our premium to new markets like India and China, where the world wealth creation is moving,” says Bula.

Given that Bula is the Executive Vice-President responsible for its high-margin Nespresso business - is high-quality coffee one of the affordable luxury items that we will soon see in India? The industry buzz is that Nespresso will be launched in 2013 here.

“There is huge opportunity for Nespresso worldwide, and of course, we want to offer it to India. I will not comment on when,” he says. “Nespresso is a carefully crafted marketing story, but it doesn't come always in one go. You start, you improve, you go to the next level. But you take time to do it really well. And the Nespresso model really takes time. We have a lot of requests to enter new markets but we have always said, if we do enter it, we have to do it perfectly.”

Nespresso love

So how was the Nespresso success story crafted?

In the foods business, you need a great product to start off, first, says Bula. “The machine created great coffee. Then next, we created the club of coffee connoisseurs. They became the advocates of Nespresso. Even before the advent of social media, we created this community of people who were telling their friends about a great product. So, the first acceleration was the club.”

The second acceleration, he says, was the boutique, the creation of an environment that corresponded to the exclusivity of the offering, and fitted with the affordable luxury segment that the brand was all about.

The third step was communication. “The minute we saw footfalls rising, we went into mass media to explain what the Nespresso system was all about. “And then came advertising, and then came George Clooney. And then came incredible success,” finishes Bula with a hearty laugh.

Well, offline, Nestle did start great brand conversations going around coffee, but now in the digital medium what is the company doing?

Digital Acceleration

To accelerate digital marketing, Bula says, Nestle has set up on January 1 this year in Vevey a 15-member team. They will come from Nestle markets around the world, stay for a year and go back.

“In every market Nestle has its own digital initiatives – like in India, we have very successful ones with Nescafe and Kitkat, but globally we want to help aggregate, learn and disseminate knowledge, which is where this team comes in,” he explains..

“This will be our centre of competence to build digital marketing conversations. We are also working in partnership with important social media companies,” he adds.

Not only will it shape the way Nestle does its market research, and the way it does innovation, but win advocates for the brand, says Bula, recounting how a gentleman in the UK woke up one morning and realised he had no more Nespresso capsules. He went to the Facebook page of Nespresso and sent out an SOS: ‘Could George help me, please?'

“Our Nespresso people picked that up and delivered to him coffee capsules in an hour and he told all his friends,” says Bula.

Chocolate haute couture

What about e-commerce? Would Nestle be looking at that? Bula gives two examples.

Four months ago, in Germany, Nestle started a social e-commerce enterprise called Nestle-marketplatz.de. This came about because the global community who lived in Germany would walk into supermarkets and complain that they could not find the Nestle product they were used to. “So we launched this online marketplace where an Indian living in Germany can buy the Maggi in the flavour she is used to. A Japanese the Nestle product she is used to in her country.” It's an experiment if successful can be replicated elsewhere too.

Also two weeks ago, Bula says, the company launched another e-tailing experiment - Maison Cailler which is an e-business around premium chocolates.

“We send you about 12 chocolates of different tastes and based on what you pick, we craft a box that we think will be suited to your likes,” he says. This allows Nestle customers to discover their chocolate personalities.

What about India? Will this come here, we ask excitedly. “We launched this just two weeks ago. I know you want everything in India immediately, but give us a little bit of time,” pleads Bula.

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