ITC Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)
Marketing Strategy of ITC analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on ITC marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the ITC Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:
Quick Glance:
ITC Product Strategy:
The product strategy and mix in ITC marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
ITC is a leading FMCG company in India. ITC has a dynamic portfolio in its marketing mix with businesses spanning FMCG, Agri-business, Hotels, Information technology, paperboards and packaging. The product lines have great product length and depth. ITC products are exported to over 90 countries worldwide. The core products are:
FMCG
In FMCG goods ITC is India’s leading marketer. ITC comprises of packaged food, Lifestyle retailing, Education and stationery products, safety matches and incense sticks, personal care products. ITC’s food brands include Sunfeast with sub-brands Dark fantasy, Yumfills, Bounce; Bingo, Candyman, Yippee, GumOn, Mint-O, Kitchen of India, Aashirvaad, Fabelle, Sunfresh, B natural and Sunbeam. Within each of these brands there are different variants of the product. For example, ITC Sunfeast offers biscuits, cookies and cakes; ITC Yippee offers instant noodles and pasta; candyman offers toffees, candies and mint.
ITC has a range of popular brands like Navy cut, Insignia, India Kings, Silk cut, Gold flake, Classic, Lucky Strike, Players, capstan, Bristol, Duke & Royal, which has won many awards.
Personal Care
ITC has developed an array of products in the personal care segment. Based on extensive consumer research and product development ITC’s brands like Fiama, Vivel, Essenza Di Wills, Engage, Superia have received a very positive response. Shower to Shower and Savlon are already very popular.
Clothing
Wills Lifestyle and John Players are ITC’s lifestyle retailing businesses. They provide a tempting collection of apparels and a delightful shopping experience to their consumers. Classmate and Paperkraft offer a variety of products in the education and stationery business. Classmate is the largest notebook brand in the country. Carton board packaging, flexible packaging are the different product lines of ITC’s packaging business.
Hotels
ITC has a premium range of luxury hotels in over 70 destinations. ITC hotels are the greenest luxury hotels in the world because of its sustainable and responsible policies.
Image: company website
ITC Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in ITC marketing strategy:
ITC has different price points as it has a diversified product portfolio. ITC have products in all price brackets but more and more new products are on the premium side as they provide higher margins.
Pricing of the product depends on several things like pricing objective, the market one is operating in, the purchasing power of the consumers, the market condition, product’s market position etc. For instance, as Bingo was entering the market, it adopted a very clever aggressive pricing strategy to capture the market share. They maintained their prices as per the market leader but offered more quantity and more margin to the retailers which gave them a competitive edge. ITC follows different marketing mix pricing strategy for different products. Their economy brands follow economy pricing. Marketing and manufacturing cost is kept at a minimum. ITC had to hike the price its premium products in the industry due to hike in excise duty. Classmate is priced over 5% over its competitors. The annual revenue of the company is around $10 billion.
Read more about ITC
ITC Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the ITC marketing mix:
ITC has an unmatched distribution network. Its products are available in more than 4 million retail stores in India. A strong distribution shows its marketing mix place strategy. ITC is constantly trying to reduce the lead time and to make the products reach to the retailers as quickly as possible. Being an environment friendly organization, ITC is carbon positive, solid waste positive and water positive. Out of the total energy it consumes over 47% comes from renewable sources. E-choupals ensure timely supply of high quality raw materials. ITC has well integrated manufacturing and Logistics facilities with a wide and deep distribution network. All manufacturing units owned by ITC are hazard Analysis and critical control point certified. ITC has distinctive agri-sourcing capabilities with farm linkages in over 17 states which provide it with high quality wheat, soya, potato, coffee etc. It has an efficient CRM program for commodity customers. ITC's Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division has four manufacturing units, eight regional sales offices and over 60 dealers in India. ITC has over 100 hotels are present in 70 destinations. ITC’s food products are exported to North America, Middle east, Africa and Australia.
It is also one of the largest exporter of Agri-products and coated boards in India.
ITC Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the ITC marketing strategy is as follows:
ITC designs its promotion strategy keeping in mind its brand proposition and its target audience. It promotes its product through Print, television and radio as a part of its marketing mix. ITC’s different brands have different brand ambassadors. For example, classmate has been endorsed by Yuvraj Singh and Soha Ali Khan; Saina Nehwal has endorsed Salvon; Shahrukh Khan has been endorsing the entire range of snacks under the umbrella brand of Sunfeast. ITC roped in Ranbir Kapoor for John players. As part of ITC’s centenary initiative, Classmate launched the largest student contact program- Ideas for India challenge. It provided a platform for Indian youth to brainstorm and address the issues and challenges which our nation faces and help in developing the nation. ITC also launches a lot of digital campaigns to ensure maximum participation. The Fiama De Wills Men campaign is one such example. Fiama DE Wills has had an association with the talented designer, Masaba Gupta for Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week. ITC also engage in cross marketing promotions. YiPPee! Launched a campaign with Paytm offering recharge coupons equivalent to the price of YiPPee noodles. The company launched an advertisement to back the campaign. Hence this concludes the ITC marketing strategy & marketing mix.
About ITC:
ITC or Imperial Tobacco Company of India limited was established in 1910. It changed its name first in 1970 and again in 1974 and was finally called I.T.C Limited. Headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal, ITC is one of India’s most valuable conglomerate with presence in all the three sectors of the economy. It is a customer focused company which believes in gaining their trust and creating value for their stakeholders. It is a multi-business enterprise with a portfolio of 13 businesses which create world class Indian brands. ITC understands the innate desires of the consumers and provide high quality product and services to them. ITC has presence in FMCG goods, Hotels, Agri-business, Information technology, paperboards and packaging. Under the stellar leadership of Y.C Deveshwar who is a Padhma Bhushan awardee, ITC has grown by leaps and bounds.
The Research and development center in Bangalore had played an integral part in creating new innovative products and solutions that gives a competitive edge to ITC. ITC also has a lot of social investments programme like ITC e-choupal eco-system, water recycling, water conservation etc.
This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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