concept  TO  conquest

amk 

Malt War 2003

This brand warfare hogged the limelight for the past two months and continues to do so at present. Nestomalt marketed by Nestle, is a brand well-established in the market and enjoyed a leadership position in Malted Milks. Prior to Anchor Power Malt being introduced, Nestomalt competed with brands such as Horlicks and Viva.

With the entry of Anchor Power Malt, the entire malted food category was reenergised. Obviously, Malted milk must be a product category that is quite large. This can be judged by the intensity of the Power Malt campaign. 

Anchor Power Malt by linking the Anchor brand, was hoping to build on the brand equity. Anchor is a well-established brand name and by extending the brand into a new category it could be established quite quickly and cost-efficiently.

The brand positioning of Anchor Power Malt was "The only complete malted food drink." Hence, the positioning was cleverly engineered into a malted food category as opposed to malted milk. To justify the positioning, claims of different vitamin fortifications were made.

It could be easily forecasted that a considerable sum of money would have been spent specially on the marketing communication activities, in order to establish Anchor Power Malt. The TV channels, radio networks, and newspapers were filled with communication messages, supported by a very vigorous point of sales campaign utilizing posters, shelf strips, and danglers. On certain days, certain busy highways were decorated with Power Malt POS material.

After one week of Anchor Power Malt being launched we observed the Nestomalt reply. Nestomalt attempted to reassert themselves, as the market leader in Malted Milk. 

The positioning platform "was Nestomalt -

for Power, Strength and Energy" 

A mass scale postering campaign, supported by heavy media advertising was observed. To augment the mass media campaign a consumer promotion was also implemented followed by the launch of a smaller pack 
at Rs.10.

Challenger strategy
When one analyses the Malted Milk War, it is clear that Anchor Power Malt entered the market to challenge the leadership position of Nestomalt. Hence, Anchor Power Malt could be termed as a "Market Challenger". The challenger strategy was head-on, with the objective of creating maximum damage. (Frontal attack with all marketing mix elements firing). In addition to the frontal attack, a segmental attack too was carried out, by targeting the "Malted Food" segment. Nestomalt as the market leader, was forced to defend its market position. (Sometimes defense is the best form of attack). The Nestomalt marketing strategy could be termed as "Position defense", which means to defend market share and avoid/minimize the loss of share.

With the Anchor Power Malt and Nestomalt war hogging the limelight, Horlicks, which is a middle-ranking brand, also made its presence felt. Horlicks carried out a sales promotion campaign, with the objective of riding on the hype created by the giants.

Hence, we can conclude that the entry of Anchor Power Malt has created a major rejuvenation in the somewhat stereotype malted milk category. Hopefully, this would benefit all players and the Sri Lankan consumer would be the ultimate winner.  

Creative Concepts & 

Marketing Consultation by

​

Athula Mahawalage

with

Muhammed Hamza

​and

Udaya Samaratunga