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It was awarded as the most preferred brand in CDC category at the FMC Most Preferred Awards 2003 & 2004 and Consumer World Award 2004. It has pioneered not only with its strong marketing strategies but also with its proper scaled distribution chain. Rasa has always looked into its marketing and brand building and has achieved an expertise in flavor technology. Its efficient management in production and market environments has harnessed to bring to the Global consumers, technologically superior products in fruits,vegetables, beverages, confectioneries… O stand as a leader in the Processed Food Industry. Let has focused towards bringing to the Global Consumers Ethnic recipes and Food Products from India. Rasa has adequate and in-depth knowledge & information on Market sizes and behaviors, Growth prospects, Project Availabilities, Government Policies, Finances etc. And access to more,enabling the company to respond fast to any proposal with suitable recommendations. It believes that there is a huge and emerging market for Rasa’ s kind of product range, all over the world.
Rasa is capable of managing global sized manufacturing set-ups working on the most advanced technologies to cater to the huge markets, nationally and globally. Rasa as a brand has won many awards and credentials surpassing any other soft drink concentrates company. Rasa proudly received Superior Taste Award 2008 instituted by The International Taste ; Quality Institute (ITS), Belgium given to Mr.. Areas Combat, the Founder Chairman and Innovation Officer at the hands of Hon.. Shari Subbed Kant Assai, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Gobo. F India with the blessing of Dastards (Dry. ) Froze M. Kowtow (High Priest of Iambi) in the august presence of Mr.. Christian De Beau of ITS. Rasa has managed to dominate the colossal CDC market because of its massive International Operations. One of Rasp’s biggest strength is it’s Marketing and Sales setup,through which millions of consumers worldwide are experiencing the flavor of satisfaction. Having menaced international operations in 1993 Rasa is currently marketing it’s diverse Product range in a majority of the world markets.
It provides a strong and proactive marketing support to its distributors and importers around the world-Just so that their products stand out, and apart, on the shelves. Timely delivery schedules of its products anywhere in the world is what has helped them to reach a strong position in the global markets. The countries which imports Rasa products globally are as under: Rasa Global Offices: * USA & CANADA * UK and EUROPE * STUDIO ARAB * RUSSIA time has helped the brand gain a reputation in the market. It has also helped Rasa in creating enormous business relations all over the globe.
HISTORY OF RASA PRIVATE LIMITED Piano Industries Ltd. (Piano) is perhaps not a familiar name for the average Indian consumer. However, Biomass brand ‘Rasa’ is very well known. In fact, the name Rasa is almost a generic name for soft drink concentrates (CDC), a segment that had been created and nurtured by the company in the Indian beverages market. Rasp’s extremely popular advertisements with the tagging, ‘l love you Rasa,’ had become an integral part of the Indian advertising folklore. In March 2002, Piano announced a addict overhauling of its strategies for the Rasa brand.
This development was rather unexpected, as the brand had been lying dormant since long. Rasa is the market leader in the RSI 250 core Indian Soft drinks concentrate industry. The CDC industry is miniscule compared to the 5000 core carbonated soft drink industry (SD). The powdered soft-drink concentrate industry is worth around 90 core. Rasa pioneered this category and virtually owns this market with a market share of 93%. Rasa was launched in 1982 by Piano Industries Ltd. Rasa positioned its product on the economy platform. The company aims to capture the customer’s ” every moments of thirst ” using Rasa.
Products of Rasa Rasa began with 9 flavors in 1982. It added 10TH flavor in 1987. The Company Was revamped in the year 2002. Beverages & Foods * Rasa Instant Drink * Goofier Instant Drink * Liter pack * Rasa shake up * Rasa fruit Jams * Rasa fruit cordial * Rasa flavors * Rasa rose syrup * Ice-tea Ethnic Basket * Rasa curry in a hurry * Rasa pickles * Rasa curry pastes * Rasa premium chutneys Rasa Achievements * Rasa is proud to receive the superior taste award 2008 instituted by the * International taste & quality Institute, Belgium. Rank no. L in the beverage category as most trusted brand of India by economic times. * Cola cola- introduced as non aerated cola at RSI. O. 50 per glass for the first time in the world. Suppliers * Irish Gala Herbs and Herbal Products (Golliwog) * SCAT material Lemon Grass Outpour) * Sahara International (Gujarat) Competitors * Sinfully (Coca-cola),2% * Tang(Kraft Food),O. 5% * Sugar free Diet (Kudus Cadillac),O. 2% * Kissing Mr.. Fruit (HULLO. I% Customers * Individuals * Householders Offices in India * Mandated * Delhi * Iambi * Achaean * Kola
Distribution of Rasa * Locknut * Gabbed * Durance * Embalm * Changing * Paragon * Jam * Banner’s * Patina * Rancho * Kuwaiti * Bangor * Jasper * pane * Ago * Nagger * Indore * Jabberer * Repair Opportunities of Rasa * Opportunity through best international practice Benchmarks * Consolidation of suppliers and vender managed inventory(Vim) to slash sourcing costs * Process and technical improvements to lower production ;formulation coats * Investments in ERP applications and technology to improve chain efficiencies.
Future plans of Rasa Rasp’s infallible bedrock of * Relationship with children Marketing and brand building * Strong distribution * Expertise in flavor technology * Advanced manufacturing facility Case Study: per capita consumption of Rasa is 15 glasses and our vision is to increase the per capita consumption to 100 glasses by 2005 and to reach out to one billion Indians every year. ” – Prior Combat, Chairman and Managing Director, Rasa Ltd. , in March 2002. Integral part of thaliana advertising folklore.
In March 2002, Piano announced a rather unexpected, as the brand had been lying dormant since long. Company sources revealed that these developments were in line with a restructuring aerogram that had been conceptualized in mid-2001. Keeping in line with this plan, Piano launched two new brands, Rasa Tutus (Rasa Festive) and Rasa Arizona (Rasa Daily) in March 2002. The launch was accompanied by a multi-media advertisement campaign, for which the company allocated RSI 160 million.
The television campaign that ran across all major national and regional channels featured a ‘song’ exclusively composed for the new launches. A notable feature of this commercial was the fact that it was voiced by one of the country’s most well known singers, Ash Bonbons, who had never sung for NY commercial before. Piano soon released music cassettes and CDC featuring remixes of old, popular Hindi songs and the new Rasa song. In addition to this, the company sponsored musical events across the country.
Industry observers were however, viewing the above developments as Biomass desperate attempts to infuse fresh life into Rasa. There were apprehensions regarding its success given the fact that previous attempts in form of brand extensions had failed to have any significant impact on Rasp’s growth prospects. And unlike the late ass, the average beverage consumer in India had a cost of other options, such as colas, fruit Juices, iced tea, attracted Juices and other soft drinks.
Most importantly, Rasp’s stronghold in the CDC market was facing severe competition from Coca-Cola’s newly launched Sinfully and Dry. Moorhen’s C-sip. Rasp’s fading ‘brand awareness’ and its lackluster image had become major hurdles, capable of marring the prospects of the new marketing overhaul exercise as well The Making Rasa: Piano, an Mohammedan (Gujarat) based company was the first to introduce the concept of CDC in India. Its proprietors, the Camshafts saw a huge untapped TTS operations in India, due to policy changes with regard to Macs operating in India.
At that point of time, there were no major players in the preparatory Sods market. Piano thus launched an CDC under the brand name Gaffe’ in 1976 and marketed it with the help of Volta. The brand name was changed to Rasa in 1979. Rasp’s CDC, comprised a powder sachet and a small bottle of thick, colored liquid. While the powder provided the taste, the liquid gave the flavor. These ingredients had to be mixed with a specified amount of water and sugar. The resulting syrup could then be used over a period of time by mixing it with water.
Though many analysts felt that Rasp’s do-it-yourself concept would be cumbersome and hence unappealing to consumers, it became the very reason for its success. This was because Rasa was able to exploit the Indian middle class housewife’s traditional distrust for food and drink not made at home. Not only was Rasa easy to prepare, it was reportedly the first brand in the country that provided consumers real fruit-like flavor and taste. And at only 50 paisa per glass, it was easily one of the most affordable drinks available in the market.
With many popular flavors such as Pineapple, Orange, Mango and Lime becoming anyway successes, Rasa soon established itself as an effective alternative to other products such as squashes, soft drinks and syrups. Piano had eight factories that manufactured its CDC – five in Gujarat, two in Silva and one in Punjab. The company had a dedicated R&D team in Mohammedan (Gujarat) to support its policy of launching new flavors in quick succession. The division was constantly involved in monitoring new flavor developments, controlling quality, innovating new flavors at regular intervals and analyzing new flavors at regular intervals.
As a result, many new flavors were launched over the years. In addition to the standard fruity flavors, Rasa was made available in many local flavors such as ‘Kola Shasta’ (tangy), ‘Shush’ and ‘Rose’ that became very popular. To ensure high quality standards, Rasp’s products were manufactured in a totally automated environment. Advanced world-class technology was used for packaging. The packs were pilferage- proof with moisture-resistant lining, thus, retaining both flavor and freshness.
One of the major factors responsible for Rasp’s rapid sales growth was its well-entrenched, efficient sales and distribution network covering the entire country. The sales force as managed by the company’s five regional offices, which ensured availability of Rasa products to consumers in the retail outlets nearest to them. During summer, when the sales of the company soared, Piano recruited additional sales force on a temporary basis to ensure availability of the products. The company had 24 warehouses in various parts of the country, 24 distributors and stockiness’s.
These stockiest served over retail outlets directly and over retail outlets indirectly via wholesalers. Reportedly, Rasp’s product range was one of the world’s largest distributed food brands at that time. To retain the interest and loyalty of its consumers, the company undertook various creative promotional activities. These included shop sampling, house-to-house calls, and live demos on the method of preparation, retail window displays, gift offers to customers and other trade The company devised innovative methods every year to sustain the element of fun and surprise.
In addition, Piano participated in various exhibitions and fairs that provided an excellent opportunity for direct interaction with the consumers. The fairs also helped the company increase its visibility in the rural markets by distributing argue number of free product samples to consumers in the fairs. Above all, Rasp’s advertisement campaigns helped it become a trusted and popular brand amongst Indian consumers. Piano was one of the few companies that went in for large-scale advertising on the state-owned Tapeline, Doorman’s.
Rasa also sponsored many programs on the channel, especially the ones that appealed to children, such as the animated series, ‘Spenserian. ‘ The advertisements essentially revolved around cute and very-likeable children who were floored by Rasp’s attractive colors, taste and fruity flavors. Eventually, Rasp’s Developmental featuring a small girl with the tagging ‘l love you Rasa,’ was adopted as the brand’s tagging for many more commercials over the next couple of years. As a result of all the above, Rasa virtually ruled the market during the sass and the early-sass.
For over 17 years, it remained the undisputed market leader in the Indian CDC market. This was aided largely by the fact that there was no serious competition in the market. Soft drinks as a segment was virtually stagnant and only a few syrups (Error Fax, Sherbet-e-cam) and squashes (Dip’s, Kissing) were available n the market (Refer Exhibit II for the soft drink market in India). However, most of these products were priced higher. Moreover, there was very little marketing support provided by their respective companies.
Buoyed by its success in the Indian market, in 1993 Piano decided to market Rasa on the global platform as well. Besides the CDC, Piano developed a whole new range of non- alcoholic beverages under the Rasa brand for in-house consumption. The company took special care to meet the specific requirements and preferences of global customers and leverage its own core competencies in terms of flavors and genealogy. By this time, Piano also realized that it could tap the demand for ethnic Indian foods in global markets and cash in on the brand’s strong image.
This realization led to the launch of products under two different categories – Rasa Beverages and Foods and Rasa Ethnic Basket. While the former comprised a range of drinks, the latter constituted a complete range of ready to consumer or easy to cook authentic Indian foods (Refer Exhibit I for products offered globally). By 1995, Rasa accounted for an estimated 90% of the total CDC market in India. The brand also led he in-home soft drink consumption market in India with an estimated market share of 75%.
However, Biomass ‘dream-run’ seemed to be coming to an end with the heightened activity in the Indian beverages market. In the early sass, after the markets opened up due to the liberalizing a Coca-Cola and Pepsi changed the dynamics of the market. Moreover, with the advent of fruit Juices in trackless and aerated drinks in plastic bottles, the scope for CDC products such as Rasa that needed to be ‘prepared’ began declining. Potomac finally decided to extend Rasp’s brand portfolio and launched a pre- sweetened mix-and-drink product in 1996.
Targeted at the upper end of the market, Rasa International was a nutritious and vitamin-enriched version of the regular Rasa CDC version. This was followed by the launch of Rasa Royal, positioned as a vitamin-enriched version of Rasa. It was targeted at health-conscious consumers who did not prefer Rasa CDC on account of its synthetic image (that is usage of synthetic colors and artificial flavors). These two products were priced at the higher end, as against the ‘low price’ policy followed by Rasa for the other products.
The sales of Rasa Royal did not pick up from the very beginning. Analysts attributed its allure to the strong positioning of Rasa CDC as a cost-effective drink. While consumers were willing to bear the inconvenience of preparing the CDC version on account of its lower cost, they were unwilling to do so for Rasa Royal as they had paid a higher price for it (Rasa Royal was priced RSI 4 higher than the CDC version). Eventually, the company had to discontinue Rasa Royal. On the other hand, Rasa International became quite successful, primarily because it did not need any preparation.
Commenting on the analysts forecasts that Rasa International might not succeed given the high pricing of the product, Combat said, “Contrary to moon perception, Rasa International has done exceedingly well and has created a market segment for pre-sweetened fortified soft drinks. ” By 1999, Rasa Internationally sales accounted for an estimated 15% of the Rasp’s total turnover of RSI 650 million, even as Sad’s contribution kept declining. In summer 1999,Rasa also went against its tradition of launching ‘one-new-flavor per season’ and launched two new flavors, Rasa Yorker (Yorker) and Rasa Aqua Fun (Aqua Fun).
The company launched these products in order to exploit the Cricket World Cup fever. Kappa Deep was brought in to endorse Rasa Yorker. Though Yorker succeeded attracted, Aqua Fun was a dismal failure. The failure of Aqua Fun was attributed mainly to its blue color, which was not readily accepted by the Indian consumer in the food products segment. Biomass efforts at broadening its product portfolio continued with the launch of Ornament in 2000, an aerated fruit drink, available in 1. 5 liter PET bottles.
The brand, launched in selected outlets, failed to attract customers and soon had to be withdrawn. Commenting on Ornament’s failure, Combat said “Ornament was never meant to be an aerated drink and it was Just, one in the range of innovations that Rasa constantly did. However, he agreed that Ornament’s failure was a result of certain inherent product problems. It was common practice for many Indian retailers to switch their shop refrigerators at night. This resulted in quality problems, as Ornament required refrigeration at all times.
The short shelf life of the Ornament also contributed to its failure as the company failed to set up a strong distribution network for the product, which could allow it to replace Ornament every three to four weeks. Following its failure, the company sent the product for further improvement at its R&D facility. Despite its efforts, the woes of Rasa increased wrought the late sass and 2000. Rasa Sad’s volume continued to shrink by over 7% proved to be another significant hurdle for Piano. Facing Challenges: Rasa announced these plans in early 2002 and called the overall exercise as the Rasa for one billion Indians’ project.
Combat, explaining the company’s new marketing strategy said, “We are implementing a strategy through which we wish to make consumers drink more Rasa as well as get new people accustomed to the brand. We have come out with more product offerings to attract the new consumers. For those who are already used to the Rasa taste, we have brought out value-added reduces. We are more aware than anybody else about the price-centric behavior of the Indian market and have accordingly positioned our products. ” According to its renewed distribution strategy, Rasa planned to reach an estimated retailers annually.
With its plans to reach the rural areas, the company began strengthening its distribution channels in order to cover villages with a population of up to 5,000. Following this, the company appointed 47 additional sales personnel, 350 cycle salesmen, and 145 pilot salesmen in addition to new stockiest for the relevant areas. It also engaged 500 vans for the coverage of rural areas. However, Rasa was careful not to neglect the urban markets. According to company sources, “There are pockets with rural consumers even in the metros and they are large in number. Hence, the company’s advertisements also targeted the urban and semi-urban families. As a part of its new strategy, the company focused on multi-media advertising and promotion,wherein an effective marketing strategy was adopted to communicate the brand message, using the different media such as TV, radio and print. Madras Communications (Madras), a leading advertising agency, undertook the advertising and promotional activities. Madras developed an advertisement campaign constituting five television commercials, radio advertising and outdoor media campaigns.