Maggi Crisis 2015 — How Maggi regained customer trust after the ban
Maggi entered India back in 1982. At that time, the Indian mindset was extremely conservative with its food habits. People usually preferred traditional Indian specialities over packaged or canned products.
When Maggi launched its first product in India, the brand targeted working women. Why? Because Maggi noodles were ‘Fast to Cook’ and hence offered convenience at a lower cost to those who had less time. However, sales of the product did not take off despite heavy media advertising and publicity.
To understand the core of the problem, Nestle India [Parent company of Maggi] conducted some research. As it turned out, it was children who liked the taste of Maggi noodles the most and were the largest consumers of the product.
Nestle then shifted its focus from working women to young children and their mothers. The company altered its marketing strategy to showcase Maggi as a convenience product for mothers and a ‘fun food’ for children.
Thereafter, using taglines like ‘Mummy, bhookh lagi hai’ (Translation: Mother, I’m hungry), ‘Bas 2 minute’ (Translation: Just 2 minutes) and ‘Tasty and Healthy’ — Maggi portrayed the product as a quick and nutritious snack.
For the next 30-odd years, Maggi literally ruled over the Indian market — Holding over a 70% share in the instant noodles category.
But as they say,
“Smooth seas never make skilled sailors.”
The Maggi Crisis
In 2014, a food inspector, during one of his routine raids, noticed that the Maggi packets claimed to have ‘No Added MSG’ [Monosodium Glutamate].
For the uninitiated, Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavour enhancer that is typically added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, and soups. It is said to cause asthma, headaches, and brain damage in humans.Maggi Samples were then picked up and sent for testing to the Central Food Laboratory in Kolkata, India. Results that came out about a year later were astonishing. Everyone’s favourite, Maggi contained 17.2 parts per million (ppm) lead, while the maximum allowed limit was just 2.5 parts per million (ppm)!
The FSSAI [Food Safety & Standards Authority of India] then banned all varieties of Maggi in the country. The entire empire — which was built on Taste and Trust — came tumbling down overnight, and Maggi was no more available for sale.
The company suffered huge losses worth over 60 million US dollars after they were forced to destroy more than 30 thousand tonnes of Maggi!
Analysts felt that it could virtually be the end of the Maggi dominance after a massive betrayal of customer trust — especially since young children were directly affected by it.
The revival story
Maggi, as we know it today, still remains an important part of our lives. Nestle has been largely successful in regaining customer trust while keeping their competition at bay.
But how did they come out of this crisis?
While everything else was going against Maggi, the one thing that continued to be on their side was — Sentiment!
After years of complete dominance in the industry, Maggi had become more than a packet of noodles. People had started to associate their childhood memories with the 2-minute noodles.
In order to revive the Maggi brand and to keep rising competition away — the company used customer sentiment to their benefit.
About a month before the end of the 5-month ban, Nestle started releasing short videos with the tagline ‘We miss you Maggi’, and aggressively promoted it across all social media channels to incite nostalgia among consumers.
One of the ads featured two young men returning home late. One of them was worried about what they would have to eat, while the other assured him that ‘Midnight cooking’ was back, referring to Maggi noodles.
Another advertisement showed a mother describing an anecdote about her son tip-toeing at night to cook Maggi. She let him cook, comforted that he wouldn’t go to bed starving. However, when questions were raised about the product’s safety, she doubted if she made the right decision. However, after Maggi passed all the safety tests, she felt she had passed a test too.
The strategy of aiming advertisements at mothers and young adults helped the brand greatly in easing doubts about the safety of the product. All of Maggi’s campaigns became an instant hit on social media as they portrayed the nostalgic moments Maggi had created in the lives of people.
To give you reference, over 60 thousand packets of Maggi were sold within just 5 minutes of launch through an online retailer that the company partnered with. Such was the power of the company’s revival marketing strategy!
But things don’t stop here!
To recover all the damage caused, Maggi continued to release advertisements with taglines like ‘Nothing like Maggi’ which celebrated the good old spirit of the 2-minute noodles despite other contenders coming into the picture.
Maggi also went on to introduce more flavours and variants to its product range and focused more on the healthy segment with its ‘Atta Noodles’
Maggi’s successful return — A story of smart brand positioning
Maggi returned to the market with remarkable success. The brand that had lost most of its market share due to the ban, had gained 60% of the market in less than a year of its return!
Today, even though Maggi still competes with the likes of Yippee Noodles, Patanjali Noodles, Knorr and many others — it is clearly the favourite of them all.
Interestingly, Maggi never used to word ‘sorry’ in any of its marketing campaigns despite a huge blunder. Why do you think that happened? Comment below. :)
