Can oat be the moat that Marico needs to build to give 'Saffola Oodles' a remote chance to make a dent at 'Fortress Maggi'?
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You can’t take on Maggi with a Maggi. Reason: There can’t be another Maggi. So what does a challenger brand do? Simple. It has got two weapons in its armoury. First is to clearly differentiate itself from the leader—both in positioning and product—so that the fledgling brand doesn’t wilt under the heat of the biggie.
Marico—better known for cooking and hair oil brands (Saffola and Parachute, respectively)—has entered the noodles segment by rolling out oat noodles under the brand ‘Saffola oodles’. The FMCG major, for sure, has smartly covered its Oodles brand by keeping it at least three minutes away from Maggi. Look at the positioning of Oodles: Ready in ‘five minutes’, which makes it different from Nestle’s Maggi, which owns the ‘two-minutes’ space. Another layer of contrast is the shape. Oodles comes in ‘rings’, so again a different product from Maggi.