Gautam Adani is a prominent Indian businessman and the chairman of the Adani Group, a conglomerate with interests in various sectors such as energy, infrastructure, logistics, and more. While there is limited publicly available information on Gautam Adani’s specific marketing strategies, we can look at some general aspects of the Adani Group’s marketing approach and its success as a case study. (more…)
Sandeep Maheshwari is an Indian entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and photographer. He is widely recognized for his motivational talks and videos that inspire millions of people to overcome challenges, discover their true potential, and live a purposeful life. (more…)
Vivek Bindra is a renowned motivational speaker, leadership coach, and business strategist based in India. He is known for his motivational videos, seminars, and training programs that aim to inspire and empower individuals and organizations. (more…)
“Khan Sir,” also known as Anand Kumar, is an educator from Bihar, India, who gained significant popularity for his unique teaching methods and dedication to helping students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for competitive exams like the IIT-JEE. While my knowledge cutoff is in September 2021, I can provide some general reasons for Khan Sir’s popularity: (more…)
Physics Wallah is an online education platform founded by Alakh Pandey, popularly known as Physics Wallah Sir. It primarily focuses on providing free educational content, especially in the field of physics, to students preparing for competitive exams in India. (more…)
Groww is an Indian investment platform that allows users to invest in a range of financial products, including mutual funds, stocks, and gold. While I don’t have access to specific case studies or up-to-date market information, I can provide you with a general overview of Groww’s marketing strategy and its key elements. (more…)
Zerodha is a prominent online brokerage company based in India. It was founded in 2010 by Nithin Kamath and has since become the largest retail stockbroker in the country. Zerodha is known for its innovative and disruptive approach to the brokerage industry, particularly through its low-cost trading model and technology-driven platforms. (more…)
boAt is often regarded as India’s fastest growing audio & wearables brand. The company has become really popular in the last few years and gained further recognition when one of its co-founders, Aman Gupta, appeared as a “shark” in Sony TV’s smash hit show “Shark Tank India”. Reports suggest that the sales of boAt headphones have gone further up a notch, courtesy of the investment-raising show that had rocked the TRP charts and social media trends in early 2022.
I this post, we will ‘dive’ into boAt and take a detailed look at the company and its marketing strategies through a thorough case study.
boAt began its journey in the year 2016 when co-founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta decided to offer fashionable audio products at a price never seen or heard before. The two co-founders started out with a capital of INR 30 crore. BoAt wanted to create value for the users so they started looking to solve common problems reported by the youth. It was the time when Apple users were suffering because of their charger getting damaged without any apparent reason. So they decided to make Apple charger that could withstand wear and tear for long, and they were quite successful at that.
Later, the company went on to add a number of quality products such as earbuds, headphones, smart watches, wireless speakers, etc to its product range. As of December 2020, boAt was already selling 14,000+ products in India every single day. BoAt’s both audio and wearable range offer top-notch quality whilst keeping the price affordable. Established audio electronics brands like JBL had to drop down their prices in order to stay relevant in the target industry.
The company struggled in the first two years of its operation (2016-2018), mainly because of the lack of funding. However, once the company raised INR 6 crores from Fireside ventures, there was no looking back. According to filings with the Registrar of Companies, boAt’s FY2018 revenues grew by 4 times to INR 108 crore.
Fast forward FY-2019, boAt became the leading ear wear brand with a 27.3% market share. In FY 2020, the fashionable audio brand generated revenue of INR 500 crore. This was a staggering 108% increase from 239 crore in FY 2019.
When boAt started off, it was just available on popular E-commerce stores like Amazon and Flipkart. However, its products are now available in 5,000+ retail stores. boAt has reportedly served more than 20 million customers so far!
The company knows just too well the likes and dislikes of their target audience and the places they visit often- social media, Google, gym, etc. In a nutshell, boAt has targeted the youth of the nation very well as can be seen from the below mentioned marketing strategies:
boAt has never portrayed itself as a consumer electronics company. Rather, it has always taken immense pride in presenting itself as a lifestyle accessories brand. Doing so creates an image in the mind of the user that boAt products can be used at all places whether you are sweating in the gym, or commuting in a bus.
This intent of the company was also visible at the Lakme Fashion Week (2009) in Mumbai, where all the models sported only boAt products.
Over the years, the company has spent a lot of money on online marketing, as they have targeted the youth. BoAt has mainly run its campaigns on Google and social networking websites like Facebook and Instagram. Interestingly, all customers of boAt are referred to as ‘boAtheads’. The company has also appointed youth icons such as Kiara Advani to win the trust of the customers.
Some companies launch a product, gain success and then fizzle out as they fail to expand their catalo. Expanding your product range over the years is a good marketing strategy in itself and boAt has been exceptional at that. The company first made indestructible apple charging cables and chargers. Tasting success, they did not stop at that introduced ear phones, which was followed by wireless speakers and headphones. With this continuous, well-thought expansion, they were able to capture a large share of the market, owing to which its popularity grew by leaps and bounds.
boAt products offer affordability without cutting down on style. This was not a common thing 7 or so years ago, when the market had either premium brands or cheap ones that did not offer an X-factor. The blend of two was rare. BoAt addressed that gap with its products that attracted the youth. The brand ambassadors were also carefully chosen which had a great face value among the millennials, especially from industries such as Bollywood and Sports (Cricket). In terms of quality of the ear wear, the products could be worn without any fear of damaging them even while gymming or performing high-intensity exercise in the outdoors.
boAt has made a huge name for itself in the last 4 years. It’s reputation and popularity was bolstered after the appearance of one of its co-founders, Aman Gupta, on Shark Tank India season 1. On the marketing, pricing and styling front, the company has left no stone unturned in outsmarting the existing competition. The impact has been such that renowned brands like JBL had to cut down on its prices in order to stay relevant in the industry.
The future of the company looks quite promising, courtesy of a dedicated R&D team, millions in funding and the zeal to stay appealing to the youth. Notably, Aman Gupta’s present net worth is INR 10,500 crore.
Swiggy Case Study and Marketing Strategy – A decade or so ago who would have known how online food ordering and delivery services will take the entire nation by storm. One such food ordering and delivery app that has made a name for itself is Swiggy. The company was founded in the year 2014 and despite tough competition from arch-rival Zomato – the former has been successful in capitalizing the market in many regions and becoming the “largest online food ordering and delivery platform.”
In this blog post, we will take a look at the marketing strategies followed by Swiggy through a case study. The success story of this online food ordering app – which has also moved on to groceries now – will continue to inspire many startups and future entrepreneurs for years to come.
Swiggy is the brainchild of 3 individuals named Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini.
Majety is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM. Before co-founding Swiggy, he worked as a recruitment co-ordinator for IIM. Then he co-founded Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd along with Nandan Reddy, which served as the foundation for Swiggy.
Co-founder Nandan Reddy completed his M. Sc. from BITS Pilani in the year 2010. Before heading over to Bundl, he had become the founding partner of Zurna, a restaurant in Hyderabad.
Jaimini was the one who designed Swiggy’s software and mobile applications. He is a former IIT Kharagpur student, and before joining Swiggy, he had worked with renowned companies like Philips.
When Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy set out on the path of entrepreneurship in 2013, they launched a logistics solution named Bundl Technologies. Unfortunately, the startup did not turn out to be successful; as a result, Bundl was shut down a year later. After some considerable thought, they returned with a business idea, but this time in the food industry. Thus came an online food ordering and delivery app which was designed by Rahul Jaimini. He took care of everything from software and databases to the user-interface and functionality.
When the app went live in a limited area, the company had to brace up for some competition in the form of Foodpanda and Ola Café. Swiggy started its operations with just 6 delivery boys and 20+ restaurants on board.
The online food ordering and delivery app has come a long way, courtesy of multiple rounds of funding and backing by renowned global investors. Let’s take a look at the funds that Swiggy has raised over the course of time:
In a nutshell, Swiggy has raised more than $3.7 billion in over 15 rounds of funding.
Swiggy generates revenue through a number of ways. Let’s take a look at each of the methods one-be-one:
A restaurant has to pay a commission for every order that it receives through the Swiggy app. Roughly 20%-25% of the total order value is charged as commission from the restaurants.
A nominal delivery fee (including distance fee) is also applied on every order. This, too, fetches decent revenue to the food delivery company. Furthermore, these charges are higher during the times of “high demand” and “challenging weather” conditions.
You must have seen many promoted restaurants while browsing inside the app. These restaurants pay a fee to appear ahead of their competitors. These paid advertisements contribute a lot to Swiggy’s revenue.
Swiggy Instamart is a fast grocery-delivery system. It came into picture in the year 2020, a few months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic – a great business move at a time when people were hesitant to go out to buy groceries. The company claims to deliver groceries within 15 minutes in 15+ cities where this service is available. Swiggy reportedly makes over a million instamart sales every week.
In March of 2021, Swiggy revamped its Swiggy Super subscription service by breaking it into 3 parts – Binge, Bite and Bit. The benefits vary across the three programs as per the subscription plans. With Swiggy One, however, all the existing Swiggy Super Members will be automatically upgraded to the new program for the remainder of their subscription. Now, patrons can enjoy unlimited free deliveries, better discounts and other benefits. These subscriptions generate a good amount of revenue for the company.
Swiggy makes great use of digital marketing, especially social media marketing, email marketing and paid ads.
A) Social Media Marketing
Swiggy is very active on all social media platforms. Swiggy has come up with many interesting hashtags in the past, for example #EarnYourCheatMeal #NoOrderTooSmall #EatYourVeggies. They also share humorous posts in which they spin-off the current trends into something that promotes the company’s services and vision.
B) Email Marketing
Customers receive emails from Swiggy on a regular basis. The use amazing graphics, catchy slogans and jaw-dropping deals to garner consumer interest. These emails start getting particularly interesting during major events such as IPL, World Cup, Olympics, etc.
C) PPC Advertisement
The online food ordering and delivery company runs Google text ads and display ads to offer amazing cuisines to people searching for food on Google search. Then, Swiggy also actively promotes mouth-watering dishes and restaurants to try through social media advertising on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Swiggy has acquired many startups so far, here’s a list of a few notable acquisitions made by Swiggy over the years:
1) The first acquisition that Swiggy made came in the year 2017 when it acquired Bengaluru-based Asian food startup, 48East.
2) Later that year, Swiggy acquired Mumbai-based Scootsy Logistics – a startup in the field of food and fashion delivery that was struggling to make a mark. It was, however, closed soon.
3) The company purchased milk delivery startup named SuprDaily in an all cash deal
Swiggy faces direct competition from one very strong rival and that is none other than, of course, Zomato. The latter has a very strong market hold in some cities, for instance, Chandigarh. According to a report in DNA, Swiggy receives a daily order volume of 1.5 million, compared to Zomato’s 1.2 million. After acquiring UberEats, Zomato has expanded its business to 556 cities and towns. So the battle between these two food-delivery giants is getting fierce with each passing day.
The landscape of online food ordering has seen a lot of investment and innovation in the last few years. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has also forced the online delivery business owners and investors to think about other businesses which can be incorporated into the current business model such as groceries. Whether there is a pandemic or not, groceries will never go out of fashion as they serve the basic necessities of human beings. Therefore, Swiggy Instamart has been launched at the right time.
Swiggy appears to be on the right track in the majority of the cities. However, it should be wary of its arch-rival Zomato, which is expanding its food-delivery business more rapidly than ever. Plus, Zomato is also spending a lot on marketing which has contributed a lot to its growth in the last 2 years. Hence, the road ahead is challenging for Swiggy.
We hope that you found this case study on Swiggy insightful and interesting.
Keep following our blog to know more about how digital marketing is shaping the future of all modern-day startups.
If you are a non-vegetarian, odds are high that you are a huge fan of KFC already. We are pretty sure that you visit your nearest KFC restaurant at least once or twice a month?
Don’t you? Oh, come on! Don’t lie!
Although KFC offers a wide variety of non-veg products in India, it is best known for its fried chicken and zinger burgers. In this case study and success story, we will go back in history and see how and where KFC started, the methods that lead to its success and the hurdles faced by the company in its journey thus far. So let’s begin with this finger lickin’ good story right away.
KFC was founded by an entrepreneur named Harland Sanders. Some biographies suggest that Sanders was born in the year 1890 and spent his childhood on a farm in Indiana.
Reports suggest that his father died when Sanders was only 6 years old, leaving the latter with the responsibility of taking care of a younger brother and a sister. Sanders’ mother spent days working for long hours; however, her profession is still debated. According to a report in the The New Yorker, Sanders was a decent enough chef by the age of 10.
His mother remarried when he was 12 years old. However, the kids’ stepfather wasn’t kind enough to them; as a result, Sanders was sent for work on a farm 80 miles away, while his younger brother was sent to live with an aunt.
Sanders soon realized that he was not the right fit for school. So, he dropped out while in seventh grade and a few years later started taking up jobs such as operating a ferry boat, selling insurance, marketing tyres, stoking the steam engines of trains and making lighting systems.
With the money made from all the above-mentioned jobs, Harland Sanders bought a small place at a service station in Corbin, Kentucky in 1930. Here, he started to serve classic southern dishes to travellers.
The place soon became popular for its cuisine and Sanders started to make a decent sum of money through quality food preparations. Soon, he acquired the complete service station and expanded his restaurant.
In the year 1939, he carried out a small experiment with a new kind of pressure cooker – not what we use at our homes these days. He fried his chicken with as many as 11 herbs and spices and found that this new pressure cooker was capable of delivering the ideal taste that he was looking for.
Thanks to this new mode of cooking, his restaurant enjoyed an overwhelming success for the next decade or so. The governor of Kentucky was so impressed with Sanders’ effort and hard work that he decided to confer the title of “Colonel” – the highest title a state can offer – upon the latter in 1950.
Two years later, in 1952, Sanders signed a deal with his friend, Pete Harman, who was willing to sell Sanders’ dish as “Kentucky Fried Chicken” through his own restaurant. Sanders received a 4-cent royalty on every successful sale. The success of this deal prompted him to sign similar contracts with several other restaurants.
By this time, Sanders had two means of making money; first, through his own restaurant; and second through royalties from local restaurants with whom he had shared his recipes. In 1952, however, the construction of a new highway rendered his restaurant with almost no customers. As a result, he sold the location, though at a loss, and started to reconsider his future plans with a $105 monthly social security and small royalties from local restaurants.
After careful consideration, Colonel Harland Sanders decided to follow a complete franchise model, rather than setting up new outlets of his own. So he packed his stuff including a few pressure cookers, flour, spices and herbs and hit the road with his wife accompanying him.
On the journey, he would stop and offer to cook free fried chicken for the restaurant owner/manager. If they liked the taste they could make a deal straightaway. Proceeding with this strategy, Sanders managed to get nearly 600 restaurants to serve Kentucky Fried Chicken – from both the United States and Canada – over the course of a few years.
In October 1963, a young lawyer named John Y. Brown and a venture capitalist, Jack Massey approached Colonel Sanders with an offer for full-fledged franchise rights. Sanders was a little hesitant at first; however, after weeks of persuasion, he agreed to sell the franchise rights for a sum of $2 million (roughly equivalent to $16 million in today’s currency).
According to a report published by BusinessInsider, under the franchise contract, it was agreed that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) would set up restaurants across the globe and will, under no circumstances, compromise the original recipe.
The Colonel was to have a lifetime salary of $75,000, a place on the board, a major share in the Canadian KFC outlets and the opportunity to serve as the company’s brand ambassador.
The Aftermath
Many business experts believe that Sanders should have asked for a better deal. But, it seems that Sanders was never after money and was just looking for global fame for his quality food preparations. This can be validated by his constant grumbling of the poor quality gravy that the “new” KFC was offering. He spent the latter years of his life appearing in KFC commercials, talk shows and interviews.
Up until his death in 1980, Colonel Sanders maintained an active lifestyle, travelling long distances to promote the brand and taking feedback from patrons. The University of Houston has honoured him by featuring his name in the University’s Hospitality Industry hall of fame.
Colonel Sanders wrote down a few rules before handing over the rights. Over the years some more additions have been made. So all KFC restaurants must follow these rules:
Only a pressure cooker should be used to cook the chicken. No other utensil is allowed.
Once the chicken has been cooked, it should not be removed from the cooker for at least 15 minutes.
All chicken pieces should be 8cm wide and must weight roughly 300g
All chickens shouldn’t be younger than 60 days or older than 70 days.
The chickens must remain marinated overnight before undergoing any sort of process
KFC now has outlets in more than 120 nations and is, in fact, the second-biggest restaurant chain after McDonald’s. Due to the COVID-19 Outbreak many KFC outlets in the US and Canada removed the tagline “Finger lickin’ good” from its
banners, posters and commercials. KFC’s parent company, Yum! Brands, also operates Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in India.
The story of Colonel Sanders is an inspiring one in its own right. It shows us that one can be of any age in order to run a successful business. It also inspires us to value quality more over money. We hope that you find this KFC success story useful and highly motivating.
