AN ‘ITEM NUMBER IN THE MOUTH’ THAT

KEEPS FAMILY FUN TIMES ROLLING

T he story of Kurkure is one of a brand that created a completely new

segment in the salty snacks category, created value in consumer life
and did it all with a sense of humour. And along the way it challenged many
beliefs.
How much value can a small crooked piece of a salty something that
crunches and melts away in your mouth in no time at all, create? Turns out,
plenty—the value of navigating between tradition and modernity, the value
of aspiration, and last but not the least, the value of embracing imperfections
and loving with a laugh. The belief that families that snack together and
laugh together, stay together, will continue to be the bedrock of the Kurkure
campaign strategy.

Truth, quirkily told

When it comes to describing the success of the fifteen-year-old brand

Kurkure, the ₹1000-crore-plus snack brand of PepsiCo India, old timers
often talk of providence. Over the years, Kurkure has come to be identified
as a quintessential family brand and has brought joy to many families,
consistently highlighting thought-provoking contemporary points of view on
the Indian family and its myriad interactions.
‘Tedha fun’ has been at the forefront of product and marketing
innovation and the brand has constantly reinvented itself to remain relevant
to the Indian ethos and culture. India’s most loved snack brand, since its
launch, has been engaging Indian families with its inimitable taste and
highly addictive, full-bodied offerings. Right from the beginning, Kurkure
has been steering between tradition and modernity: made with familiar
kitchen ingredients but in shape and format and flavour delivery, a ‘twist on
tradition’. As we will discover, this would go on to become a cornerstone of
brand Kurkure. Be it in product, format, flavour or shape, in brand
communication and the characters it portrays, Kurkure has followed the
‘twist on tradition’ formula.

Mood, twists and turns

Kurkure was launched in 1999 and has since then transformed the way
Indians snack. At its core, Kurkure questioned the existing norm that salty
snacks were divided into two large segments, traditional and potato chips.
Kurkure introduced a new sub-segment within namkeens, creating a new
palate experience for consumers. Armed with its unique product proposition:
‘Familiar taste in an innovative format’, the brand broke category codes and
transformed the landscape of snacking in India, both sensorial and visual. It
introduced a sub-segment that was not palm food, but finger food—so if
namkeen was eaten in a bowl, Kurkure was eaten out of a bag. Kurkure
bridged traditional Indian snacks—namkeens—and the modern potato chips.
It also substantially modernized the codes of namkeens while still appealing
to the spicy Indian palate.
Brandishing a strangely addictive, intense chatpata taste, Kurkure was
launched as Lehar Kurkure, a sub-brand under the umbrella of Lehar (which
was positioned at that time as an irresistible snack). It used traditional Indian
‘kitchen ingredients’ like rice, lentils, corn and Indian masala seasoning; and
the story goes that it took 220 trials to make Kurkure. Consumer testing had
people loving the crunchiness and saying it was very ‘kurkura’ (crunchy)—
and from there came the name.
When it was launched in Chandigarh, the sales team literally ‘painted the
town orange’ with all three-wheelers carrying the packs being painted in that
colour. One of the fastest market placements, Kurkure had near 100 per cent
coverage in ten days, something that was repeated in many other markets
soon after. A significant retail merchandizing innovation that marked the
initial years was the ‘rack’, which gave consumers a modern trade
experience in traditional trade, today an accepted and ubiquitous sight. The
small packs hanging in ‘ladis’ (hangers) outside shops rather like shampoo
sachets, was another innovation that became a category norm.
With its zesty, multi-sensorial taste that was energizing and mood
transforming, and as a consumer once put it, an ‘item number in the mouth’,
it was launched with the tagline: ‘Kya karen, control nahin hota’ to drive
home the addictive taste of the product. Focusing on the value of mood
transformation, Kurkure tapped into a variety of flavour buckets, giving its
consumers a range of experiences, sometimes coming from regional palates,
sometimes emerging as fusion flavours with a hint of the west but always
Indian at heart.

The ‘Great Indian Family’ brand

While in the initial years, Kurkure leveraged the product’s irresistible and
unusual taste to establish itself and create the category, in 2003 it shifted its
fun positioning to encompass the entire family. With this, it also stepped out
of the shadow of Lehar, as a brand in its own right.
The brand created a context for itself by appropriating the territory
hitherto occupied by namkeens enjoyed as moments of family togetherness
over a cup of tea. Kurkure took the battle into namkeens’ own backyard by
developing its contemporary perspective on Indian family dynamics.
In a country so rooted in family values, few brands came across as truly
‘family brands’. Kurkure talked to snack-loving, spice-loving, variety-
loving, conversation-loving Indian families. Kurkure rooted itself in the
family social context and became a commentator on the changing Indian
family, always bringing its own insightful observations on quirky truths of
the great Indian family.
 Kurkure professed that families that snacked together and laughed
together, stayed together. In a country where family love was historically
deep-rooted in duty and responsibility, obedience and sacrifice and codes of
conduct; where Bollywood idealized family love, lump-in-the-throat
melodrama, replaying mythology themes of duty, sacrifice, protect and save;
where advertising revelled in portraying the perfect mother, the perfect son,
the perfect wife; where TV serials paraded the dark side of family life,
kitchen politics, conflict, jealousy, manipulation, power, marital violence,
and money fights; with its strangely addictive, intense chatapata taste,
Kurkure assumed the role of a catalyst. It portrayed a family that was
happily, unabashedly idiosyncratic and playfully imperfect, always accepting
that ‘we are like this only’ and that ‘in our family it happens like this only’.
It loosened stiff, formal relationship hierarchies in Indian families and let in
fresh masti-filled air!

Introducing a ‘Kahani mein twist’

When other players started trickling in, sensing the opportunity, Kurkure had
to reassert its uniqueness and elevate itself above the mass of copycats. It did
a re-jig of the product (extra spicy) and linked the product’s transformational
experience to the ‘twist’ in any regular and staid situation. The ‘twist on
tradition’-centred promotion continued till 2004 even as the brand then
signed on the bubbly actress, Juhi Chawla in 2004 in an attempt to target
housewives who were the ‘gatekeeper’ audience for the brand.
Kurkure wanted to do something special with Juhi and decided to
leverage her cheerful personality, her amazing sense of comic timing, her
non-glam doll image and the fact that she was a mother and housewife too.
Since housewives were generally hooked on TV serials, Kurkure decided to
target them by making a spoof on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, a
popular TV soap at that time. The campaign continued with many a spoof,
be it of Bollywood classics or television soaps that helped tell product stories
of ‘Kahaani mein twist’ (A twist in the story).
 If masti (fun) and Kurkure were synonymous with each other, so were
masti and Juhi; and what could be better than having all three (Juhi, Kurkure
and masti) packaged together. Spontaneous, fun-loving and witty, Juhi
helped shape Kurkure as a great family brand with a sense of humour.

‘Masti’ continued with new consumption occasions

Having appropriated ‘masti’, the next strategic growth bet for Kurkure was
to increase penetration by appropriating new ‘regular’ consumption
occasions and expanding its portfolio with innovative offerings.
‘The Kurkure family’ was a powerful platform to plug-in the brand
firmly into ‘family teatime moments’ as well as the brand’s innovation
roadmap. Starting with 2005, Kurkure strategically targeted evening teatime,
at the time the largest occasion for snacking—consuming macro snacks, i.e.
biscuits and namkeens—as the consumption occasion. It reached out to the
homemaker who desired ‘evening tea’ as the moment for changing gears and
to other members who looked forward to evening tea as a moment of
relaxation and a joyful collective family huddle. When every member tended
to relax in his own individual style, Kurkure stepped in not just as a snack
but as a bonding factor that brought the family back into the same living
room, creatively rendering ‘Chaitime masti bole to Kurkure!’. The timing
could not have been better with the large family as a unit beginning to
disintegrate into nuclear set-ups. The brand evoked the nostalgia of the
quintessential large Indian family set-up.

Kurkure aimed to breach the traditional stronghold of Indian snacking:

teatime, the biggest gap between meals. Beyond just positioning and
advertising, product sensorial work was done to pair Kurkure with tea.
Extensive in-home promotions with tea brands were launched nationwide.
To further enhance its share of teatimes, Kurkure launched two subbrands
‘Kurkure Solid Masti’, as new-age substantial snack options for that
‘evening peckishness’ and ‘Kurkure Masti Squares’, as an aid to the
homemaker who desired versatility in teatime snacks. Both sub-brands,
however, did not find much traction with consumers.
Kurkure kept raising its standards in terms of variants, flavours, formats,
occasions and communication to deter copycats that posed a serious threat.
Multiple promotions, many of them first of their kind for this category, were
conceived that encouraged families to spend time together, with
gratifications ranging from holidays to a tea party in the sky. Disruptive
large-scale consumer engagement programmes like ‘Kurkure Mast Family
Jackpot’, ‘Kurkure Jupp for the Cup’ (during the ICC World Cup 2007) and
‘Kurkure Chaitime Achievers’ were launched to drive consumption.
‘Kurkure Chaitime Achievers’ (family face on the pack communication)
was not just engagement, but consumer-generated participation, another first
from the ever-innovative Kurkure. Families were invited to share interesting,
ingenious chaitime recipes using Kurkure. The winning recipe made out of
Kurkure was the ‘family’s passport to fame’, with the winning families
having their photograph featured on one million Kurkure packs. This was the
first-ever consumer-generated participation in the history of advertising in
India; and with over 100,000 responses, it lead to a surge in business.
To leverage yet another consumption occasion, Kurkure came up with
‘Zyada meetha ho gaya? Muh Kurkure karo’ for Diwali, which was
traditionally a sweets-centred feasting time. This was again in line with the
brand DNA: a twist on tradition. Kurkure boldly pitched a salty snack as
part of the festive repertoire by beautifully blending two unrelated insights—
the fatigue with excessive sweets at Diwali time and the changing equation
between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Kurkure took on the
controlling and disciplining mother-in-law whose household was liberated
with fun when Kurkure appeared on the scene as an opportune gift from the
new daughter-in-law’s maternal home just when the mother-in-law was tired
of excessive sweets. In keeping with this, highly decorative gift packs were
introduced. Kurkure went on to expand its ‘festival’ strategy by introducing
a whole range of chilli flavours, the premise being ‘when you get a strong
dose of it, your real self comes out and you start taking liberties and
breaking the shackles of formality’.

´Tedha hai par mera hai´: Flavours transcending tastes, geographies and
cultures

In its bid to drive habits and enhance its share of teatime, Kurkure started
facing a host of challenges primarily due to aggressive competition from
many local and one large national player entering the market with products
in the same space.
Kurkure launched its ‘X-treme’ edition of flavours to connect with the
youth, which in turn reinforced its positioning as ‘always doing the
unexpected’. Unearthing yet another insight into the great Indian family,
Kurkure launched its iconic tag-line ‘Tedha hai par mera hai’ in 2008.
‘Tedha hai par mera hai’ became a part of everyday conversations and
advertising folklore. Some of the novel initiatives during this period
included new, unusual ingredients; introduction of regional variants; flavours
inspired by master chef sessions around chutneys/pickles; and creating
rituals—Kurkure bhel via on-premise bhel carts at PVR. Constantly giving
consumers new taste experiences, over the years, Kurkure has created many
limited edition flavours that included extreme flavours like Risky Chilli,
tangy flavours like Electric Nimbu; regional flavours like Punjabi Kadhai
Masala, Mumbai Chatpata Usal, Bengali Jhaal and South Spice Mix; the
judwa pack which was loaded with two collet packs that looked alike but
tasted different: the irresistible zing of Tirchhi Mirchi (crazy chilli) and
tangy zest of Chulbuli Ambi (raw mango) in one pack; the chilli range:
Chilli Achari, Chilli Garlic, Chilli Mustard, Chilli Saucy; and indo-
international flavours: Punjabi Pizza, Andhra Bangkok Curry and Rajasthani
Manchurian.
 Many of these flavours were co-created with chefs who specialized in
regional cuisines, or those who loved experimenting with fusion food. While
some of them remained limited edition flavours, others became a part of the
regular Kurkure portfolio as they acquired a huge consumer fan base—
Naughty Tomato for example is one of the most popular flavours in the
south.
Kurkure also introduced the puffed range, again stealing the show with
new shapes. Puff corn has been one of the most successful launches for
Kurkure in the puffed segment—it grew share by playing to the category
code of ‘play’ by creating fun play rituals with the product. This puffed
portfolio of Kurkure has seen many innovations since, with new shapes and
differentiated textures and flavours.
To take on the money-for-value players, Kurkure launched ₹2 and ₹3
packs and created the ‘houseful pack’ at the ₹5 price point, a name that
implied quantity and all the masti of a Bollywood movie.
Through this phase, the brand’s communication always tapped into
timeless as well as emerging trends in consumer behaviour, and remained a
brand with a point of view—be it the changing mother-in-law–daughter-in-
law relationship, motherhood, the disintegrating family, the modern
housewife, mixed marriages, mother-son relationships, husbands expressing,
or not expressing, their love for their wives, the returning NRI—but always
connecting back to the product basics, the pack price proposition, the extra
quantity or the promotion offer.

Consolidating its leadership with new promotions, packs and price

points

Kurkure revamped its communications strategy in late 2012, scaling up its

‘Tedha hai par mera hai’ proposition, creating a first-of-its-kind ‘Kurkure
screen family’. With a very modern ‘remix bahu’ at its centre, India’s Most
Crooked Family is a joint family, bubbling with conversation and energy,
disagreements and conflicts, negotiating between the individual and the
collective, balancing tradition and modernity, and always looking for ways
to resolve everything with warmth and laughter, abundance and abandon.
And this quirky family told every new story, be it new taste, new pack size,
or new price point.
To help drive sales in the large pack segment, the family gathered in the
living room and tapped into the insight of ‘the making of the guest list’—
that, in an Indian family, there is no such thing as a ‘small family party’! The
large pack helped Kurkure become a planned purchase in an otherwise
impulse category. Kurkure thus managed to get on to the kitchen shelf where
the housewife stored it and then served it with pride.
 The ₹5 pack, a salient and recognized price point, was amplified through
the campaign ‘5 rupaye mein khaane waali cheez khao’ and addressed the
conversion and upgradation opportunity, taking on lookalikes and unbranded
competition/local brands and low-quality snacks. While consumers do look
out for an affordable treat, research showed that they do not necessarily give
too much thought to their choice of snacking options available at ₹5. This
indifference and lack of discretion by consumers formed the basic premise
of the campaign that asked consumers for a reappraisal of current choices,
even if it was only about spending ₹5, that could make both their purchase
and consumption experience more worthwhile.
The launch of the new ₹15 price point was another category disruptor.
Enabling greater sharing between two or three individuals, Kurkure wanted
to add some spice in those moments of sharing. Family life is supposed to be
all about sharing, but there are some things that just can’t be shared. The
campaign played on the unwillingness of a mother-in-law to share her most
prized possession, her son, with her daughter-in-law. The mast share pack
showed that it could even get them to share the man in the middle, so to say.

A classic ‘challenger’ brand success

In its bid to become an iconic family brand, over the years Kurkure used a
varied mix of penetration conversion and upgradation strategies, to increase
consumption and frequency, i.e. share of tea tray and kitchen shelf, portfolio
strategies by experimenting with flavours, taste and format, new price point
strategies and packaging strategies for special occasions.
On consumption occasions, Kurkure dared suggest that it could replace
the ‘traditional’ namkeen at teatime with its more mood transformational
bold taste and later, even, that Kurkure snacks could be gifted on festive
occasions in place of sweets.
In retail, Kurkure challenged the belief that packs had to sit on shelves,
instead creating the ‘ladi’ with snack packs hanging like sachets, now a
ubiquitous sight.
In pack sizes, Kurkure turned the practice of calling a ₹5 (23 g) chota
(small) pack, ‘houseful’ instead.
In engagement, Kurkure was the first to challenge the thinking that
snacks are an end in themselves, and tapped into the insight that housewives
like to create their own signature dishes—creating the first-of-its-kind
invitation to send recipes with Kurkure as an ingredient, with the promise of
‘consumer on pack’.
In communication, Kurkure challenged the traditional notion that a
housewife-centric brand cannot be humorous, and not just humorous, but
over-the-top funny.
In the deeper promise that it offered in the space of family bonding,
Kurkure challenged the traditional notion that family togetherness comes
from every member of the family being perfect and functioning within their
role boundaries. Kurkure was the first brand that dared portray a housewife
who proudly and happily admitted her family was full of imperfections.
So how much value can a small crooked piece of a salty something that
crunches and melts away in your mouth in no time at all, create? Turns out,
Kahaani abhi baaki hai…
Kurkure: The journey to sustained leadership

Leadership retention for Kurkure has been no cakewalk. It has faced many challenges
along the way.

Challenge of product novelty: Consistently declining product uniqueness with the

Kurkure stick (referred to as collet in the industry) becoming a category generic and
proliferation of a lot of ‘copycats’ from a host of local players.
Challenge of growing competition: The total number of branded players in the salty
snacking category more than doubled in a matter of three years (2009 to 2011).*
Challenge of new and emerging formats: Taking the cue on shapes and attempting to
excite the consumer, feeding from the collet category and further expanding consumer
repertoire.
Challenge of commanding a premium: Increasing pressure on commanding a premium
when competition is offering less than acceptable quality but with more grammage per
bag (more bites per pack).

Today, Kurkure is a megabrand with a portfolio that straddles four distinct snack formats:

• Core Collet range with several flavour offerings—Masala Munch, Hyderabadi

Hungama, Green Chutney Rajasthani Style, Chilli Chatka, Naughty Tomato
• New and Emerging range under Kurkure Solid Masti Twisteez
• Puffed Snack range that has six variants—Monster Paws, PuffCorn, ZigZag,
Monster Smileys, CornCups and Crunchy Rings
• Innovative Namkeens range with the launch of Papad O Nutz in two flavours—
Jeera Hing and Chilli Masala—this year

*Source: Nielsen