Nestle Milkmaid is the market leader, in the Rs 150 Crore condensed milk

market in India. Milkmaid is a heritage brand which was imported to India

from the time Nestle started its operations 90 years ago. It was in the year
1969 that Nestle started manufacturing this brand in India.
Milkmaid is partly Skimmed sweetened condensed milk. This is a popular
ingredient in sweets and delicacies and desserts prepared at homes.
Milkmaid has more than 55 % share in the organized condensed milk market
in India.
Milkmaid is positioned as a premium brand and is promoted with the tagline
“Bana De Everything Tempting “(Makes everything tempting). The brand is
positioned as the inevitable ingredient in all home-made delicacies.

Milkmaid although was a market leader, the brand faced issue of product
usage. There were certain factors that inhibited the product usage: price and
convenience. Milkmaid was a premium brand and the shelf life of the
product was limited, hence the affordability of this brand was limited.
Another factor was that many households were unaware of the use of
Milkmaid other than as an ingredient in sweets and desserts.

The brand tried lot of promotional activities to increase the usage of the
brand. The brand was promoted heavily through visual media and through
cookery shows, the brand tried to educate the customers on the various
recipes with Milkmaid.

The brand also came out with a package innovation. The brand created a
variant Milkmaid Squeezy which was the tube form of Milkmaid. The
purpose was to use Milkmaid as a topping for biscuits and breads.

Milkmaid faced intense heat of competition when Amul launched

Mithaimate brand in the market. Mithaimate was priced much lower to
Milkmaid and this forced Milkmaid to reduce the price to match the Amul
brand. With the lower price, Amul was giving Milkmaid a tough fight for the
market share.
This year saw a unique move by this brand. Milkmaid has come out with a
brand extension. Milkmaid has recently launched Milkmaid Fun shake: a
fruit flavored milk targeting kids. The marketers predict a huge growth in the
' Alternate Milk Category “in the coming years. I think that Nestle had
earlier tried out a Milkshake version of Nescafe but with little success. It
was little surprising to find a brand like Milkmaid extending itself to a milk
shake category. The ads are already on air. Fun shake is available in Mango,
banana and Chocolate flavor and comes in a tetra pack. The message is
similar to Nido. The ad shows kids crying when their mothers try to give
them ordinary milk and then seen enjoying taking Fun shake. Old message
and nothing new in execution.

In my personal opinion, Nestle needn't have sought the extension of

Milkmaid for this product. Fun shake could succeed as a standalone brand.
By associating with Milkmaid, Fun shake is not going to gain any positive
association.
Milkmaid is facing two challenges now. One arising from the price war from
Amul and host of other competing brands and second is to make the
category popular in households. In this era of Sachets and single use packs, I
wonder how Milkmaid misses out of small packs.