The success story of ibaco ice cream: by creating a new marketing channel
Do you remember the golden days of your childhood running behind Ice cream pushcarts; my favorite is the white color milky bar, licking it till my elbow.
In the 1980s Ice-cream was not sold as a branded item. There were more than 60,000 pushcarts in and around Chennai.
But today all the pushcart business is wiped out and dominated by a few ice cream brands.
In this week's story of Innovation in marketing: I share how a local pushcart vendor has grown into a popular south Indian brand and now fighting with premium brands with the likes of Baskin Robins.
Creating a new marketing channel to cater to a segment of your customer is not new, but if you do it by giving an entirely unique experience to that particular segment of customers then it’s an innovation.
That’s what ibaco ice cream did, ibaco is from the house of Arun Ice-creams a 30-year-old brand catering to the middle-class segment, In one of my seminars when I said ibaco is a local brand most people could not believe it. Even when I first heard from the founder himself Mr.Chandrmohan sir of Hatsun Agro Products, I could not believe it because of the way they positioned it.
But Arun Ice Cream saw there is a growing upper-class segment looking for a premium experience, moreover, the likes of Baskin Robbins are capturing that market.
Arun Ice-creams don’t want to leave the premium segment. Sametime cannot go with the brand identity of a sub-premium position. They created a new channel with a brand name ibaco, sounding like an Italian, the shop experience is entirely different with posh air-conditioned sit and eat format.
The masterstroke ibaco doesn’t want to leverage the 30-year-old, parent brand Arun. Of course, a premium category should not rely on a sub-premium brand.
This needs guts; it comes only if innovative thinking is in your DNA.
Innovation is not new to Arun Ice cream, before talking about the story of ibaco I want to share the inspiring success story of Arun Ice cream. How they moved up from a local vendor to a premium brand.
In the early 1980s, Chandra Mohan sir vision is to establish a brand for his Ice cream, he doesn’t want to get identified along with the 60,000 pushcart vendors.
With a meager investment of Rs.13,000, it’s not easy for him to create a brand, the next big challenge is marketing, to fight against some of the big brands like Quality Walls which are well-rooted in the metro markets.
So Chandra Mohan sir decided to take a different route, first, he went to semi-urban and even rural markets.
Having gained a foothold in the rural market, then he entered to Metro market –Chennai.
Now he was able to take on the competition, Arun Ice-creams TV advertisements were popular those days, it quickly captured the metro markets too.
Even its rival competitor Quality Walls was acquired by HUL, Arun Ice-cream persisted the pressure of big brands, today they are 30000 crore company
But Arun Ice-cream did not stop there.
It sees customer expectations are changing; customers are moving up in the value chain, consumers are looking for a premium experience.
Arun Ice cream's brand positioning is different, it was made to cater to the middle-class population, and the ice creams were made in factories and sold in packets.
Premium customers expect personalized service.
In ibaco stores, ice-creams are served in scoops with a variety of toppings customizing as per customer needs.
One interesting fact told by Chandra Mohan sir, the major difference between Arun Ice cream and ibaco is, the doors are always open in Arun Ice cream shops but in ibaco, it’s closed air-conditioned shops with sit and eat experience.
The best part of the marketing innovation is, ibaco never leveraged the brand power of Arun Ice-cream, as said earlier Arun was a popular middle-class sub-category brand.
Hatsun Agro don’t want to leverage the strength of a sub-category brand and dilute the premium positioning of ibaco
Rather ibaco was made as a standalone brand; the masterstroke here is they don’t even mention anywhere it’s from the house of Arun Ice cream.
Today ibaco is a strong brand grown as a top competitor in premium segment ice cream brand.
The lesson is; Create new marketing channels and justify with the customer experience what that channel is expecting; don’t mix up all in one.
All the customers cannot be served via the same channel. Create that unique experience of what that category of customer demands.
Entrepreneurs, Founders, Co-Founders, So what’s the new category of clients you are going to serve or what’s the unique experience you are going to give to your premium customers
Share your thoughts
