Innovation Management(The Maggi Noodles’ case)

Submitted by: José Costa

Date: 30/01/2015

Maggi Noodles were first introduced in India by Nestle in 1982. Although the Indian

population was not very familiarized with the habit of consuming canned or packed

food, Nestle introduced this product with the clear intention of targeting working

women who don’t have a lot of time to cook and therefore could find this type of

product very convenient.

However, this strategy proved to be wrong as the sales of the Maggi noodles were not as

good as it was expected, even with a significant investment in media advertisement. To

have a clearer view of what was the cause of this failure, Nestle India conducted a

research in which they found that the target audience was different then what they

expected. The children were the ones who liked the taste of Maggi Noodles more and

therefore a change in the marketing strategy to address the costumers had to be done.

For that reason, Nestle started a new marketing campaign, this time with the strategy of

targeting not only the mothers as a “convenience product”, but also the children as a

“fun product”.

But why is the massala kept separately?

To separate the massala from the Noodles may be considered a good example of

reverse/disruptive innovation as the product was divided in two different parts with the

objective of turning it into a more attractive product to the target audience. Which kind

of advantages this separation brought? First, as the target audience changed from

women to children, bigger concerns about the food being healthy and pleasant to their

taste came into picture. Keeping the massala separately allows the mother to add only

the amount of massala, and therefore spices, that they think it is needed and that their

children would like. Adding to this, by keeping the massala in a seperated package,

Nestle is allowing the mothers to give their “special touch” to the Noodles since this

allows them to create different recipes with the massala by adding other ingredients to

it.

References:

http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Marketing/Brand%20Extension%20and

%20Repositioning%20Nestle.htm – Consulted in 29/01/2015

http://the--noodles.blogspot.in/2009/08/history-of-maggi-noodles.html - Consulted in

29/01/2015