By Mrinmoy Bhattacharjee

‘Ghee’ has always been a part of traditional Indian cuisines and the market for the same has been highly fragmented. There is a habitual customer ethnocentrism for Ghee. Many indigenous brands of Ghee with mere regional presence have been a part of Indian Kitchen for long, and even today, a significant part of the unorganised market is served by those brands.

However, the organised pan India market is catered by bigger Indian brands with established distribution networks and a big budget for advertising and promotion. Though, Amul, ITC’s Aashirvaad, Nandini, BRB and Krishna have been the names occupying top few perceptual ladders of this category, but in today’s time, the brand of Ghee which has highest recall is indubitably Patanjali, an entity which started as Ayurveda pharmacy and in a decade, grew into a FMCG goliath. Patanjali is said to have launched an encirclement attack on multinational companies like Unilever, P&G and Nestle. The strategy has been simple and effective; focus on product efficacy and capitalise on the tailwind generated by a non-linear adoption rate of ‘Yoga as a way of life’ by millions of Indians.

The flagship product of Patanjali, the Cow’s Ghee, created a moat by attaching itself to Ayurveda and Yoga and was soon successful in dislodging other pan Indian brands from their respective positions. Baba Ramdev’s Halo effect was so much palpable from astronomical growth of Patanjali Ghee despite few hullabaloos, which were unable to create any significant tremor for the brand.

Patanjali circumvented some of the potentially damaging threats, such as the one in 2015, when Patanjali Ghee was under scanner due to complaints by consumers alleging presence of harmful fungus in the content. However, the denial state of many Indian consumers who were disciples of Yoga and Baba Ramdev, made the matter trivial.
Indian Wrestler and Olympian, Sushil Kumar’s association with Patanjali Ghee provided further impetus to the brand clout. As a brand ambassador, Sushil Kumar solidified both the parameters of Young and Rubicam’s brand asset valuator for Patanjali Ghee, namely, brand strength, consisting of differentiation and relevance and brand stature, build by consumer knowledge about the brand and the esteem associated with it.

By Rohit Dosi, Director – Microsoft Advertising, InMobi

Patanjali Ghee has been the rock-star contributor of revenue for the company and continues to be a trusted brand in Indian households. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has made people buy more products which contribute to better immunity, and what can fare well on this than Ayurvedic products of Patanjali.

However, if someone is contemplative on recent apprehend of Sushil Kumar in a murder case and whether that can be compounded by Baba Ramdev’s apology for passing vitriolic remarks on allopathic medicine and offending IMA and Dr. Harsh Vardhan, may not deserve to be outright dismissed. Is there any chance that these two incidents can taint the brand image of Patanjali Ghee and fuel skeptics to damage the established credibility?

This may not be a million dollar question, but surely needs a bit of investigation on possibilities. Patanjali is a branded house, which markets all its products under a single name. This has great advantages and few disadvantages as well. The most dominant advantage is leveraging the power of the parent brand to launch new product lines in a very cost effective way.

The brand identity of Patanjali Ghee, according to marketing principle, consists of a core identity, which is popularly known as the essence of the brand and an extended identity, which is usually built through marketing communications by highlighting the distinctiveness of the brand. The core identity or essence of Patanjali Ghee is deeply rooted to the practice of Ayurveda and Yoga, a discipline which is anchored to culture and its history. The extended identity of it is however built on the premise of compare and compensate, by consistently highlighting the harmful effects of non-Ayurvedic products and substituting them with medicinal properties of Patanjali products. The Cow’s Ghee, with a tag of Ayurveda, resonated well with Indian middle class families, though, less because of the product itself, more because of its essence i.e. Ayurveda. Sushil Kumar’s involvement with the brand was validating, but in no way, anything near to the clout of Baba Ramdev and Patanjali as a brand.

In behavioral science, there’s also a concept known as sleeper effect or source dementia, which is described as a progressive fading of connection between the source and the brand in consumers mind. As the brand gains visibility and awareness, the tie strength between the endorser and the brand gets weaker and the brand becomes its own identity. In due course of time, the source gets forgotten and the brand remains in the consumer’s mind. So, Sushil Kumar’s association with the brand might have complemented it, but certainly was not critical enough to impact its existence.

On the other hand, Baba Ramdev’s apology for his remark on allopath also has a rider of twenty five questions which are targeted to IMA, unfortunately, most of which are unanswerable. So, his mission to challenge mainstream medicines is still well served. Baba Ramdev and Patanjali have been successful in activating the ethnocentric nerve of Indian middle class, which very few Indian brands could achieve in the past. So, it appears that Patanjali Ghee is further poised to grow and occupy more shelves in Indian kitchens.

-The author is associate professor of marketing, School of Business, Alliance University Bangalore.
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