Brief Explanation

Parle Agro launched ‘Hippo’ - its first mega brand in the Foods division in 2009. Hippo in the form of ‘baked munchies’ is a unique product offering in a market cluttered with innumerable options of traditional unbranded ‘namkeens’ and branded ready-to-eat salted snacks. Being in the impulse category, it was essential for Hippo to have a strong visibility, 100% availability and Top-of-Mind recall. Inspite of a dedicated Sales & Distribution infrastructure, retail penetration was the biggest hurdle for the newly formed Foods division, especially in the complex geography of India. 92% of the retail market in India is unorganized which makes inventory tracking a time-consuming, manpower intensive and logistically complicated activity. While Hippo’s launch met with an enthusiastic consumer response, stock replenishments could not keep pace with the market demand. Hence, the task was to develop a cost-effective Alternative Inventory Tracking and Distribution system to support Hippo’s surge in demand. We came up with an innovative but simple idea: Plan-T. In the initial days of the launch, Hippo had started interacting with its consumers on Twitter. We saw consumers engaging with Hippo’s mascot as if he were a friend and not a brand. The idea behind Plan-T was to take this consumer adoration forward in the right direction. Through Hippo’s twitter account we urged his followers to tweet to him whenever they found empty racks in their neighborhood stores. Soon, tweets poured in from all parts of the country - 15,868 to be precise. Besides, 1,769 blogs & articles have also occupied the web space since the launch of Plan-T. The PR buzz created is valued at $85,667 (Total media Evaluation) To leverage the support Hippo was receiving from its consumers, a core cell was set up to monitor and pass on information from tweets to distributors in respective areas to replenish Hippo stocks. This activity not only helped to replenish stocks within 48 hrs but also supported increase in Retail coverage by a whopping 25%. No other brand in the world has been able to empower a consumer to influence Sales & Distribution of an FMCG company within 24 to 48 hrs, to get the product of his choice. We created a platform for the consumers to participate in and join Hippo in his ‘Fight against Hunger’, quite literally, making every consumer an integral part of something as technical as inventory management.