Saffola: Close to the Heart

Today, Saffola has been the market leader for 30 years in the Indian premium oil market, with 81% market share. The parent company, Marico, has grown by 17,200% from 2001 to 2022.How did Marico survive with the big companies like HUL and ITC?
In the 1960s, a study concluded that safflower oil, which contains polysaturated fatty acids, is good for heart patients because it has low cholesterol. India is the world’s leader in heart patients.Our country is home to 60% of the world’s heart patients.But there were a few market gaps that Marico needed to fill. First, safflower oil was available only in crude form. There were no refining companies to refine the crude oil. So the patients were helpless and had to cut the oil from their diet.So Marico came up with saffola. But the problem of unawareness came up as it was a completely new product. Saffola as a brand needs to create awareness of the product so that people can switch from other oils to saffola oil.They started with health campaigns, and soon saffola became the synonym for good health. They went to doctors, who agreed that saffola is healthy. Saffola then concentrated on heart patients, who were relieved to have oil back in their diet.For a FMCG company, the segment of heart patients was very small, and if the oil is being sold only to patients, then the image will be created as a medicinal product, not an everyday one. The team at Marico realised that their biggest segment is people who want to prevent heart diseases. They first made the audience aware of the segment about heart problems and what caused themu2014obesity, high cholesterol, etc.u2014and made them aware of their product.To finish saffola, multinational corporations tried everything. But Marco did something extraordinary to protect the brand’s image.They created a sub-brand of the product named Sweekar to compete with the other brands.source: AmazonHarsh Mariwala also went a step further to convince the government that blending is different from adulterating.How can you, as a business, apply the lessons?Even if you have created a fantastic product, it is not guaranteed that people will buy it. Awareness is very important. Also, it is very important to protect your brand perception, like Marico did by creating a sub-brand.Comment down your thoughts.