Brainy Fools: Round 2

Karle-G’s Konundrum

Mr. Sagar Sharma is the CEO of the Karle group, an 82 year old biscuit brand. Over the
course of the last two years, despite the country entering a recession and the outbreak of
a global pandemic, Karle has posted strong numbers, seeing its overall market share
increase by 5% in May, with 80-90% of this growth coming from Karle-G sales.

The country has grown up with the five- and ten-rupee Karle-G packs, and while many
other businesses struggled to survive, this simple glucose biscuit continues to defy time
and post incredible sales. Along with Karle-G, the only 4 other products they own are
Gappy-Gappy, Barie, CrackJack and Nilano along with Karle Agro, which only makes
different fruit flavoured health drinks.

When the lockdown struck, Karle-G shifted focus to digital mediums, smartly allocated
labour and cleverly used nostalgia as a marketing tool to stay relevant. With its evergreen
slogan ‘G mane Gazab’ Karle-G continues to turn back the years.

Mr. Sagar, however, wants to use this period to launch a new confectionary line with
multiple products within it. While other brands are pushing product launches further back,
he believes this is a period when the Karle brand could launch another brand in its
confectionary line and post strong growth numbers, bolstered by his belief in the fact that
Karle-G will continue to do well despite all other factors.

You are an advisor to Mr. Sharma. You need to determine how to move forward with this
plan. A few key questions to answer are:

 Does the current positioning of the company merit a such a foray and if not, what
changes need to be made to enable the launch of a new product?
 What should the new product be? How should it be marketed?
 How do you grow a new brand, while making sure it does not cannibalize into your
existing products? What are the other risks that could affect product launch?
 What could be a successful long-term marketing strategy for the brand as a whole?
Make a 3-slider pdf explaining your answer (Excluding introductory and thank you
slides)

Feel free to add a slide at the start (Apart from the 3 slides) which lists down all the
assumptions you have made to fill in any missing information.

Please use the naming convention: Full Name_Institute Name.pdf

For any clarification, please reach out to: brandwagon_kol@iift.edu