Kwality Wall's plans new launches

NEW DELHI: Kwality Wall''s is planning to storm your home this summer. Hindustan Lever''s ice-cream brand is launching a slew of products to bring home the parlour experience.
The idea is to make ice-creams a high-volume, planned buy and not treat as merely an impulse purchase.
The company will be launching a range of new sundaes and adding to their Viennetta, Cornetto and Feast ranges. Under the Max sub-brand, a number of new ice-creams will be launched for kids. While all other launches are being rolled out currently, the kids range will see hi-decibel promotions mid-year.
Says ED JH Mehta: "We are moving away from commodity business and going on to a differentiated product strategy." Discounts and promotional give-aways as a means to expand the market are clearly out.
Kwality Wall''s will also continue its focus on top six cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad) as Mehta says these alone account for two-third sales in the Rs 1,000 crore ice-cream market.
Of this, only Rs 650 crore is organised sector sales.
The strategy to focus on innovative products rather than discounts also stems from such data.
Mehta says the Sec A & B (top socio-economic groups) in the six cities spend only Rs 90 annually on ice-creams. "Clearly, the question is not of affordability but lack of top-of-the-mind recall," says Mehta.
Driving in-house consumption through product innovation will also mean pushing up volumes. The split between in-house ice-cream consumption versus out-of-home purchase is currently about 25:70. Mehta says the effort will be to try and change that proportion.
This year, the company will also be opening a few more owned parlours that it has been experimenting with for a couple of years now. After opening an ice-cream parlour in Kolkata and two in Bangalore, the company now plans to take the number to about 10.