January 25th, 2018

ADVERTISING & BRAND MANAGEMENT QUESTION PAPER

Duration: 4 Hours

Total Marks: 100

This Paper has 1 case study, 1 Creative Brief related question and a separate Media Planning Section.
The same case study is applicable for the Advertising Section as well as the Brand Management
section of this paper. All sections are compulsory and need to be answered.

Kindly note the break-up of marks: Case Study- Advertising Section (40 marks), Case Study – Brand
Management Section (20 marks), Creative Brief Section (20 marks) and Media Planning Section (20
marks)

This question paper is application based and tests the student for his understanding of concepts taught
in class. You are requested to write short and to-the-point answers in simple English using bullet points
(preferably) and underlining key words for better comprehension.

Please ensure that your handwriting is legible and do keep your answers short and precise. Thank you

Case Study: How PaperBoat rowed against the tide to create a success story

New Delhi: Neeraj Kakkar and Neeraj Biyani have lots in common besides their first name. The co-
founders of Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the company that makes traditional drinks under the Paper Boat
brand, studied at Management Development Institute in Gurgaon. Both come from small towns, worked
for Coca-Cola India and share a passion for poker. Ironically, both even caught the vector-borne
Chikungunya in Delhi together earlier this year when the debilitating fever was raging in the national
capital.“But there’s a difference in our age. Biyani is 37-38 and I am 42 now,” says Hector Beverages’
chief executive officer Kakkar, sitting in his informal office at Finchley Castle in Whitefield, Bengaluru.

Finchley Castle is a bungalow that serves as Paper Boat’s laid-back office, done in bright colours, with
lively graffiti on the walls. In the courtyard, a couple of portly pet dogs laze around under the shade of
the trees. A mini swimming pool, which is mainly used to dunk all new employees in accordance with
Paper Boat’s tradition, completes the picture. The atmosphere at Finchley Castle is totally
complementary to the beverage brand’s coolness quotient—evident in its smart packaging and design,
and the distinctive idea of selling ready-made traditional drinks.

The genesis

The idea of launching traditional drinks such as aamras, jaljeera and aam panna was not the brainchild
of any one person. It emanated from the collective wisdom of the four original founders of Hector
Beverages—three of whom were colleagues at Coca-Cola in India. The company was founded by Kakkar,
Biyani, Suhas Misra and James Nuttall. Nuttall, an American citizen, studied with Kakkar at Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania and came to India to be part of the functional drinks business
which first launched an energy drink, Tzinga, in 2011. (Misra and Nuttal have since left the company,
having sold their shares to the two remaining shareholders.)

The Tzinga energy drink was the first product launched by Hector Beverages in 2011

“After almost one year of doing Tzinga, we realized that we were keen to drink aam panna more than
anything else,” says Kakkar. The idea struck them during the leisurely office lunches the four partners
used to share when they were in town together. In fact, it was the delicious aam panna which came
along with Misra’s home-made lunch every day during the summer months that gave them the idea of
packaging and selling the beverage. “We thought we should launch the drink that we enjoy every day…
In 2012 for the first time we started thinking about launching traditional drinks. We were in Gurgaon at
that time,” recalls Kakkar.

The need for such a product was reinforced when Nuttall went around the city looking for packaged
aam panna to treat his American guests and returned disappointed. The four partners then pooled in
resources—Rs2.5 crore in all—to launch packaged traditional drinks under the Paper Boat label.

We thought we should launch the drink that we enjoy every day… In 2012 for the first time we started
thinking about launching traditional drinks.- Hector co-founder and CEO Neeraj Kakkar

Incidentally, the founders could not introduce Paper Boat with their favouriteaam panna as, by the time
the company decided to launch it, the green mango season was over. So Hector embarked on its Indian
ethnic drinks journey with aamras and jaljeera. Surprisingly, the two typically north Indian products
were test marketed in Bengaluru as the promoters didn’t want to disturb their sales and marketing team
in the north that was busy selling Tzinga.

Building brand buzz

After six-eight months of the launch of Paper Boat, they were told that sales of the product had
improved and there was a buzz around the brand. Promptly, Paper Boat was launched in the north, a
market which soon saw it becoming bigger than Tzinga. Encouraged by the response to Paper Boat,
Kakkar started dreaming of seeing his brand take over all the beverage consumption occasions.

Currently, the company has a total of nine year-round products including flavours such as jamun kala
khatta, aamras, aam panna, anar and chilli guava. The seasonal products introduced by the company
include Thandai, Serbet-e-khaas, Rose Tamarind and Panakam, among others.

The idea behind Paper Boat was to launch traditional home-made drinks which are slowly vanishing
from the consumer’s life. “We didn’t do any surveys before the launch. If we did any, perhaps, people
may not have said that they missed aam panna. But when it was offered, they lapped it up,” says Kakkar.

Biyani, chief operating officer at Hector Beverages, adds: “We are trying to preserve recipes for the next
generation.” To do that, Paper Boat packages ethnic Indian drinks in a convenient, hygienic form in a
contemporary and youthful fashion.

Paper Boat created a buzz in the market thanks to its distinctive branding and advertising. “The
company has been innovative in terms of product, packaging and marketing to create the consumer
wow factor. It can certainly take credit for that,” says Arvind Singhal, chairman at retail consultancy
Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd. The hip design, packaging and brand name has been the result of
collaboration with strategic design and brand consultancy Elephant Design, which originally suggested
Good Ol’, Lost and Found, and Paper Boat as brand name options.

Paper Boat—with its tagline drinks and memories—fitted the bill as the company intended to recreate
traditional drinks from old recipes. The communications target was to evoke childhood memories
through packaged ethnic Indian drinks. “And the name Paper Boat instantly connects you to your
childhood. In fact it connects global kids to their childhood as all children make paper boats and paper
planes,” says Biyani. The name was refreshing and it cut the clutter.

Clicking with consumers

The packaging was ground-breaking too. The Doypack used in Paper Boat is something which was
originally developed to carry beverage in space. “It is a futuristic pack. This is what Nasa uses when it
sends people to space. It is light, convenient and doesn’t occupy much space,” says Biyani.

Besides, the product clicked with the consumers. “Paper Boat founders had solid consumer insight that
traditional beverages will work, especially when they come without preservatives. There is strong
consumer support because of the authenticity of the products,” says Kannan Sitaram, operating partner
at private equity firm Indian Equity Partners. Sitaram is also the chief executive of Innovative Foods Ltd
which markets the Sumeru brand of frozen foods.

Kakkar says that the company’s brief to the agency comprised two words—alive and authentic. “Alive
for us meant modern, contemporary, fashionable and cool. And authentic meant natural and traditional.
Our product is a combination of these two qualities. While the packaging is alive in terms of colour and
design, the recipes are authentic,” he adds.

Hector Beverages, which has been active in online media right from the start, turned to mainstream
advertising only last year. For its television commercials it has partnered with advertising agency Lowe
Lintas. Its widely viewed digital film Rizwan–Keeper of the Gates of Heaven was made by the boutique
ad agency Humour Me Pvt. Ltd. For the year, the company has earmarked Rs15 crore for advertising.

Paper Boat founders had solid consumer insight that traditional beverages will work, especially when
they come without preservatives. There is strong consumer support because of the authenticity of the
products- Kannan Sitaram, Indian Equity Partners

Investors’ darling

As the popularity of the brand and the business grew, Hector Beverages attracted a clutch of investors.
To be sure, the company’s first investment came even before it entered the traditional drinks market
with Paper Boat. Right at the beginning, in 2011, it raised Rs15 crore from Infosys Ltd founder-chairman
N.R. Narayana Murthy’s venture capital fund Catamaran Investment Pvt. Ltd as well as from venture
capital firm Footprint Ventures.

In 2013, the year the company introduced Paper Boat, it closed an $8 million investment round led by
Sequoia Capital with participation by existing investors Catamaran and Footprint Ventures. Last year, the
company raised another round of $30 million led by investment firm Sofina and Hillhouse Capital.
Existing investors Sequoia and Catamaran also participated in this round.

Declining to share its investment details in Hector Beverages, V.T. Bharadwaj, managing director at
Sequoia Capital India Advisors, says: “Sequoia does not disclose its investment size. We are excited that
we have had a chance to partner with Neeraj (Kakkar) since 2012.” On Paper Boat’s business, he says
that non-cola beverages are emerging as an exciting alternative as consumers explore more options to
fizzy drinks. “Hector has been a pioneer in this space and has created an ‘Indian ethnic alternative’ for
every consumer. This is the biggest source of excitement,” adds Bharadwaj.

Hector in 2015 raised another round of $30 million led by Sofina and Hillhouse Capital. Existing
investors Sequoia and Catamaran also participated in this round

Both Kakkar and Biyani reflect their investors’ confidence. They agree that the fizzy drinks market is not
growing as expected as consumers are making healthier choices. Globally, leading beverage companies
like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are turning their attention to healthier options such as juices and other
functional drinks. “Carbonated drinks are going down. There is a shift happening from carbonated to
non-carbonated drinks,” says Kakkar. In 2015, the total volume of carbonated beverages in India was 4.5
billion litres, according to a report by research firm Euromonitor International.

Rapid growth in a slow market

Although a downturn in sentiment has been affecting sales in the packaged consumer products market,
the slump doesn’t ruffle the Paper Boat partners. “A few consumer goods companies may not have
done well in some quarters—or may be one odd year—because of their exposure to rural markets. But
people who have exposure to urban markets continue to do well,” says Kakkar. Agrees Sequoia’s
Bharadwaj: “Consumer sentiment is always a roller coaster. There are times when it’s up and times
when it’s down. The advantage of a category like beverages is that it’s a basic category less affected by
the vicissitudes of consumer sentiment.”

Little surprise then that Hector Beverages has seen rapid growth. According to filings with the Registrar
of Companies, for fiscal year 2014 Hector Beverages earned revenue of Rs15.9 crore. For FY15, it was
closer to Rs25 crore (estimated post-adjustments). The numbers for the year to March 2016 are not
available. The company expects to grow to Rs100 crore this year.

What makes Paper Boat’s packaged drinks business attractive is also the fact that India is moving from
being an unbranded to a branded goods market. “There is a shift from commodities to brand play. It
happened in many countries and it is happening in India right now,” says Kakkar.

Biyani feels that investors have shown confidence in their company as it has a lot going for it, especially
from a consumer habits’ point of view. He says that young consumers today are especially confident of
themselves. They are comfortable using Indian brands. “They do not need to consume an American
brand to project they are cool. They can be cool being themselves and hence consume whatever they
want,” he says.

That’s not all. Consumers today have started to pay for convenience, which wasn’t the case earlier.
Biyani says that his grandmother, for instance, wouldn’t pay for packaged jaljeera even if she could
afford it. “She would be appalled at the thought of ready-made jaljeera. But the 25-35 year olds now
attach value to convenience. They understand their time is more valuable. Paying for convenience will
open up a lot of categories which we earlier thought didn’t make sense to open,” he adds.

Hector Beverages’ conviction about the future of Paper Boat also stems from the fact that drinks will
never go out of fashion. “We are talking of basic food and beverage. I like this business because once
you have a relationship with the brand, your kid will take it from you and take it further. Unless we mess
things up big time on quality or brand promise, Paper Boat can only grow,” says Biyani.

Reaching more markets

With confidence in the future of demand, Paper Boat has been expanding its capacity. Currently the
company has two manufacturing facilities—one at Manesar near Gurgaon and the other at Mysuru near
Bengaluru. When it started out, the Manesar facility churned out 80 Doypacks per minute. However
when the Mysuru plant came up in 2015, it added more capacity. With addition of more capacity over a
period of time, the two units today collectively produce 400 Doypacks per minute.

Having ramped up its production capacity significantly, Paper Boat is now concentrating on improving
distribution. “We can double our numbers everywhere if we could focus on and improve our
distribution,” says Biyani. But that is easier said than done. Currently, Paper Boat is available in 70,000-
100,000 outlets compared to, say, the leading soft drinks brands which are present in more than 1.2
million outlets. For now, the brand enjoys a significant presence in metro cities such as Delhi, Mumbai,
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.

Although Kakkar still sees room for improvement in Paper Boat’s reach at the sales outlets it is present
in, including in modern trade stores, he agrees there is scope to expand in smaller towns. His contention
is that currently probably only 20% of the people who visit modern trade outlets may have tried Paper
Boat. “70-80% of the people who shop there are yet to buy our brand. So we have a long way to go. The
first five years will be used in going out and telling our story to more people,” he says.

However, he is also eyeing the mom-and-pop stores in tier II towns. “Our current challenge is how to go
deeper with a product which has a shelf life of four-six months,” says Kakkar.

Paper Boat has done well for itself through institutional tie-ups—it sells its products to airlines, and is
now trying to get into the Indian Railways network

Limited distribution is, perhaps, one of the biggest challenges for Paper Boat. According to Abneesh Roy,
analyst at Edelweiss Securities Ltd, the business for Paper Boat is likely to be centred around the metro
markets and top towns. “Establishing strong distribution beyond that would not be easy with just one
set of products. That’s one of the reasons why Paper Boat has launched a host of fruit-based beverages
recently,” he says. Unless a company has a full range of products, expanding retail reach becomes an
issue, says Roy. “Retailers are not prone to promoting one product for a company. If that’s the case, a
lot depends on consumer pull which Paper Boat has, to some extent, in the metros and top towns,” he
adds.

To increase its reach, Hector Beverages has tied up with Indo Nissin Foods Pvt. Ltd, the Japanese
company which makes Top Ramen noodles. It hopes to piggyback on Indo Nissin’s distribution network
to expand into the tier II markets and some rural pockets. Right now, only a small percentage of its
business comes from this tie-up. Going forward, Kakkar expects 60% of Paper Boat’s business to come
from Indo Nissin’s distribution network.

However, the company has done well for itself through institutional tie-ups. It sells its products to
airlines, and is now trying to get into the Indian Railways network.

Balancing pricing, volumes

Deeper penetration and reach is only one of the challenges for the company. Experts say the premium
pricing of its products is another challenge which may limit its scale. Currently, Paper Boat is the most
expensive drinks brand per single serve. It is at an approximate 20% premium over the other brands.
“Success of any company is its size and scale rather than consumer wow. We need to look at the top line
and bottom line,” says Technopak’s Singhal. “The point to be seen here is not just the shelf space it is
occupying but how quickly the product is moving.” He adds that Paper Boat’s product pricing could
come in the way of growth. “How do you balance pricing so that you do not sacrifice volume,” says
Singhal.

Agrees India Equity Partners’ Sitaram: “There is a taste imperative and there is a price imperative. If you
need to expand demand, you need to figure that out. In case you want to expand to the masses, you
need to rethink as you are competing with fresh juices from a juice-wallah at Rs15 and Rs20 a glass.”

Although Biyani agrees that his brand comes with premium pricing, he insists that Paper Boat offers
more value to the consumer. “For Rs30 you get more than double the pulp that you get from Slice or
Maaza. You get naturally ripened pulp and you get no preservative or colour,” he says. He’s also proud
of the “clean label” Paper Boat offers versus the label that other companies have. “People who actually
read the label and understand it, value us. They don’t move from the brand. So am I serving the five
rupee consumer? No. But we can become a part of the upper-middle-class and middle-class families,” he
says.

Although premium pricing has improved the company’s gross margins, it hasn’t made Hector Beverages
profitable as yet. Biyani and Kakkar say that the company would be profitable if they refrained from
spending so much on advertising and marketing. “In terms of unit economics, we are pretty much there.
We are profitable. But when you have to invest in manufacturing—that would be Rs40-50 crore and
then the second largest expense on P&L (profit and loss) is marketing. If we were to consider marketing
as an investment and not charge to P&L, then we are profitable,” says Biyani.

Although premium pricing has improved the company’s gross margins, it hasn’t made Hector
Beverages profitable as yet

“We are doubling our business almost every year,” he adds. Interestingly, Roy of Edelweiss points out
that a large part of Paper Boat’s growth is coming from its arrangement with IndiGo airline. “Its revenue
targets are most likely based on this,” he says, adding that the challenge for Paper Boat is probably high
advertising cost on a low revenue base.

However, there are other challenges too. The product does not own intellectual property (IP). The
recipes for the traditional drinks that the company so lovingly talks about have been taken from
people’s homes and temples. So it is not as though these products cannot be copied or manufactured by
others. In fact, Dabur India Ltd, maker of Real juices, also launched HajmolaYoodley brand of ethnic
drinks in similar-looking packs and flavours. Queries to Dabur on its ethnic drinks brand went
unanswered.

For Rs30 you get more than double the pulp that you get from Slice or Maaza. You get naturally
ripened pulp and you get no preservative or colour- Co-founder and COO Neeraj Biyani

Biyani disagrees that Paper Boat has no IP. “Our IP is our brand and all the qualities associated with the
product. Our IP is the processes we follow, which make our drinks very different in their unique way. For
examples all our mangoes are naturally processed. No other company is doing it,” he says.

Biyani feels that the company creates a lot of IP in the form of sourcing its raw material, designing its
packs and the brand experience. “We try and do it in a much better and consistent way so that the
customer experience is good. And that I think is a challenge for any new company which wants to just
come in one day and decide to make aamras. It will have to go through the grind to match our product,”
he says.

Supply chain struggle

To be sure, in Biyani and Kakkar’s view, their biggest challenge is the supply chain. For instance, right
now the company works with 16 states, and 11-12 countries from where it sources its ingredients.
“When you are growing you need all these ingredients at the right place, right price and quality. You
have to keep working on at the back end. The supply has to match your growth. It’s a struggle,” says
Kakkar.

For starters, getting naturally ripened mangoes became a huge challenge; it eventually sourced them
from Galla Foods Ltd in Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh). Galla Foods provides Paper Boat with Totapuri
mango pulp for aamras, green mango pulp for aam panna and white guava pulp for chilli guava. Galla
Foods is a division of Mangal Industries Ltd, which is an Amara Raja Group firm. “The mangoes for Paper
Boat are naturally ripened. They have invested time and effort to get the right pulp. They have to be
appreciated for the single-minded focus to offer quality products to consumers,” says Divakar
Sukumaran, business manager at Galla Foods. “From 2013 to 2015 our raw material supply to Paper
Boat has grown by 85%,” he adds.

Currently, the pomegranates for Paper Boat’s anar drink come from California. The lemons, meanwhile,
are sourced from Europe. Kakkar’sfavourite drink kanji, for instance, hasn’t seen the light of day even
after three years of trying because the right ingredients for the product are not available.

Kakkar has tried to source purple carrots and their seeds from different countries including from Turkey,
but hasn’t succeeded. “Besides, it is a fermented drink, so FSSAI (Food Safety and Authority of India) is
also confused about what you are offering,” he says with a laugh. Kakkar feels that if he is not able to
package and sell kanji, it may be soon lost to the world. So he continues looking for the appropriate raw
material with the full backing of his team.
Festival-oriented drinks

And it is a very patient team that he has which willingly works towards achieving whatever he fancies.
This year, Kakkar had the brainwave of launching traditional drinks linked to festivals. So it launched
Thandai for Holi in the north, Panakam for Ram Navami in the south and Serbet-e-khaas for Ramadaan.
Of course, his fixation for these festival-oriented drinks creates a logistical nightmare for the company’s
production and distribution teams, but the response to his new experiments has been overwhelming.
“In terms of operations it is crazy and chaotic as the volumes for these products were kept low and they
were launched just days before the festivals. For Thandai we manufactured 1.2 lakh units. But the
product was in short supply and we got abused in various quarters,” says Kakkar, adding that the
company will be better prepared next year.

Biyani says that the 900 people that Paper Boat currently employs share the promoters’ passion for the
brand and are willing to experiment. The informal environment keeps them motivated. Work seems like
fun for now as most employees live close to Finchley Castle so that no time is wasted in commuting.
Biyani, too, either walks or cycles to work. Whether the company will be able to maintain the same
informality at work once it grows to be 5,000-strong, is difficult to predict, he says.

Where do they see the company in 10 years? “Significantly bigger with an international presence,” says
Biyani, adding,“Paper Boat continues to surprise me. When we started, we didn’t know that ethnic
beverage packaged could be a large market. We identified the need and questioned the fact why it is
not there, but we never thought that it is such a large miss in consumer’s mind. That is what continues
to surprise me. We can make it really, really big.”
Creating a Disruptive & Differentiated Brand in PaperBoat:

Its winning formula: ethnic flavours, snazzy packaging, funky digital marketing focussed on stirring
nostalgia through storytelling

When Neeraj Kakkar and his team at Paper Boat decided to launch Kanji, a tangy probiotic drink popular
in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, they were surprised to find that the original recipe had been modified due
to unavailability of the key ingredient: purple carrot.

With orange and red carrots having taken the Indian market by storm, farmers had virtually stopped
cultivating the variety needed to make Kanji. And the substitute was a combination of orange carrots
and beetroot.

After an intensive search across geographies, they learnt that purple carrots were being cultivated in
southern Turkey. Hector Beverages, the parent company of Paper Boat, imported its seeds in 2014 and
began cultivating in Udhagamandalam (formerly Ooty). Now, the first crop is ready, and Hector
Beverages is looking to add Kanji to its portfolio by this winter.

“We want to be the reference taste for every beverage we launch. We also believe that if there is
something better-tasting than our product, we will stop selling it,” says Kakkar, explaining why he didn’t
settle for the carrot-beetroot combination for his Kanji.
And that is one of the pillars of the company’s disruptive business idea, which has helped Paper Boat
become the preferred drink for many despite entering a market crowded by the Pepsis and the Cokes,
as late as in 2013.

The disruption

Paperboat created a new category of branded ethnic-flavoured drinks when it burst on the scene, and
its packaging too set it apart from the crowd.

Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at retail consultancy Third Eyesight, says Paper Boat’s innovative
products and packaging have been a force of ‘creative disruption’, and the company has been able to
back that up with distribution.

“Paper Boat’s traditional Indian flavours and its differentiated packaging give it a unique look at retail
stores. The company has clearly gone after market share and taken a penetrative approach. Whichever
geography they choose, they are going after it very aggressively. It is clear that they want to be a deeply
penetrated mainstream product,” he says.

But making a mark wasn’t easy. Retailers were wary of stocking the products, fearing they wouldn’t be
sold. And that’s when Paper Boat’s deployed its second disruptive strategy: a no-questions-asked return
policy. “We gave our retailers the freshest of products and refunded them in full in case of returns,” says
Kakkar.

Most large companies, in contrast, only refund a percentage of the money. But Paper Boat’s ‘insurance’
cover on returns ensured that its Aam Panna, Gol Gappa and Aam Ras beverages adorned every
retailer’s shelf.

The third pillar of Paper Boat’s success has been customer-centricity: it sources the best quality raw
materials from across the country. “We have invested in quality function. Our aim is to be better than
MNCs because being equal to them has no meaning,” says Kakkar.

Another factor, which Kakkar believes has worked well for the brand, is its communication strategy. “Be
it communication on TV or social media, we have followed the same distinctive tone of nostalgia and
innocence. Once you speak the same language, people remember you better.”

The stories that the brand narrated were reminiscent of the way IndiGo airlines lovingly created stories
for its Airwiches (sandwiches on air). Tellingly, Paper Boat beverages are served on board IndiGo,
bringing two great storytellers together at 30,000 feet.

Paper Boat relies heavily on digital marketing, and its digital campaigns are as funky as the brand. On
Instagram, it tells its brand story using creative doodles, videos and photographs, cleverly using two
puppies named Hector and Beverages to add fun to the storytelling.

“We are digital first and mass media second. We use the cheapest way to reach out to people,” says
Kakkar.
The challenge

But according to Harish Bijoor, CEO of the Bengaluru-based brand consultancy that goes by his name,
“Paper Boat’s communication is good, interesting and different, but it is niche -- and that is a negative.”

“Niche marketing is good as an early entry strategy, but if a brand wants to appeal to a slightly larger
mass, which has the money, it cannot remain niche,” he says.

Today, ethnic flavour drinks have a nearly 50 per cent share of the Rs2,000-crore juices category.
Already, other brands – Dabur Hajmola, Cocofly – are emerging, with ethnic flavours similar to Paper
Boat’s. Copy-cats typically eat into the market share of the incumbent. Going forward, Paper Boat may
have to reach out to a larger audience in a tone familiar to them.

Dabur’s HajmolaYoodley is surprisingly capturing public imagination. It’s seen more on modern trade
shelves (which is not surprising, given Dabur’s FMCG distribution strength) and is piggybacking on the
familiar Hajmola brand, which helps with customer connect.

Dutta believes that Paper Boat’s geographic footprint can grow over time, as has been the case with
some other players. “They have an adequate presence in certain geographies and they are not as strong
in some others just like many other FMCG brands. I think it is a matter of time before they expand,” he
adds.

Paper Boat, meanwhile, is also keeping a close tab on costs. It replaced tetra packs with a flexi pouch
that uses just 8gm of plastic as against 25gm for a pet bottle, making it cheaper by at least 50 per cent.
“Even transportation costs go down with this packaging,” Kakkar points out.

And profitability, he says, is not a concern. “Ours is not a cash-burn business. We continue to invest in
growth and advertising (at the cost of profitability),” Kakkar adds.

For now, the company has settled down to a strategy of having some year-long products like Chilli
Guava or Aam Panna and other temporary launches once a year like Thandai during Holi, Panakam
during Ram Navmi and Kanji for two months in winter.

So far, Paper Boat seems to have got its mix right. Its ability to continue to juice out success from its
differentiated strategies will, however, be tested over the next few years.

Advertising Section of Case Study:( 40 marks)

Having read through the above case related facts thoroughly, please answer the following questions:

Draw out the Marketing Strategy for PaperBoat by specifically answering the following questions:

a) Opportunity Analysis(5 marks)

b) Competitive Analysis(5 marks)
c) Market Segmentation leading to Target Market(10 marks)
d) Positioning Statement for the Brand(5 marks)
e) Communication Proposition(5 marks)
f) What strategy should PaperBoat adopt in order to expand the market- Detail out
  Specifically talk about new consumer segments to tap into for market expansion(5
marks)
 Define the Channels of Communication (Television/ Print/ Events/ Digital etc.) that will
LEAD your promotional initiative for market expansion and give a rationale for your
answer (5 marks)

Brand Management Section of Case Study: (20 marks)

a) Define PaperBoat’sPoPs and PoDs. In this context, outline the direct and indirect competition for
PaperBoat(2+ 3 marks)
b) Write a short note on the product, pricing , placement and promotional strategies that helped
build the brand PaperBoat in the marketplace (1+ 1+ 1+ 1 + 1 {for clarity of answer} marks)
c) Work out Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism for PaperBoat . Articulate the Brand Essence for
PaperBoat(4 + 1 marks)
d) What according to you is the key problem facing PaperBoat in the market that it must overcome
to grow and stand the test of time? Detail out and give rationale for your answer (5 marks)

Creative Brief Section: (20 Marks)

There are 4 pieces of communication (Videos). Choose ANY ONE out of the FOUR and write the
Creative Brief for your chosen communication

The Creative Brief should clearly delineate the following:

a) The Background OR Market Context including the business issue facing the brand(4 marks)
b) The Communication Objective(4 marks)
c) The Target Audience including a word picture of the TA(4 marks)
d) The key consumer insight that will connect with our audience(4 marks)
e) The key challenge facing the brand: A statement of where we want to take the brand with this
communication (4 marks)

Media Planning Section: (20 Marks)

Q1. How would you define the seasonality for paper boat and what would be the best scheduling
strategy and why? ( 10 marks)

Q2. Define the effective frequency for paper boat using Oslow’s table of Effective Frequency (10 Marks)