Maggi Crisis - Will Marketers Win Again?

Maggi and the Lead Crisis seems to be going out-of-hand for Nestle. I have written earlier about Maggi and is one of my favourite examples to wake-up students in the class, so felt obliged to share my view on the crisis. I have few die-hard fans at home too…

Historically we have seen brands go this kind of challenge, once with the Cadbury's worms issue and the Pesticide Issues with the Colas drinks, and they have recovered fairly well from the crisis, so the same prognosis goes for Maggi too. But yes, a lot needs to be done before the recovery would happen. I am going a little ahead of time, as the worst of the crisis is yet to come, and that would happen over the next couple of months, with more reports coming in and the media having a gala time, debating the issue on the prime time :)

The reasons why I say that Maggi would make a come-back, (though in the process some other brands would be able to gain market-shares which they would have never dreamt earlier) is the loyalty it has developed over the years and the loyal Maggi eaters would eat it anyway, good or bad. The second reason is marketing, they have had very good marketing brains working for the brand and that has been the reason for its success and they would fall back on the same people to help them revive the brand. My guess is that the strategy would already be getting ready in the boardrooms and mid-night oil must have been burnt reading the experience of coke and Cadbury’s..

But interestingly one challenge which I see is winning back the “Mother", though most of the communications have mother at the centre, but she has not been very happy with serving Maggi to her children all along.  I overheard this conversation between a mother and her seven year old daughter, where the child was asking the mother about MSG and the problems with it, and the mother extended it to even pizzas saying that even they were not good. Over the years the typical mother has been grudgingly let the child eat the quota of Maggi without being able to do much, now here she sees a window of opportunity. She will try and use this crisis to wean the child away from Maggi. But my hunch is that the marketers will use more powerful tricks to win both of them back, for the child is the taste and mother the convenience…

I have used the word "Quota" in Maggi consciously, ideally it should be 'rationing' as the child is not allowed to eat Maggi whenever he or she wants....