Amul

India is one of the leading producers of dairy items in the world and milk is most preferred food item after cereals in Indian families. its contribution in GDP is also significant for the year 2006-2008 milk contribution alone was Rs 1,44,386 crore ,higher than any other agriculture produce. In terms of value output, milk is now the single largest agricultural commodity in India

Milk producers had to travel long distances to sell their produce. Due to lack of proper facilities milk get sour in traveling before reaching to actual customers, which led to a major  loss to milk producers. In order to come up with this problem a marketing agency with the name of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) was set up by the Kaira Cooperative Union in 1973. This dairy cooperative union followed a three-tier structure at village, district and state level for procuring, processing and marketing milk and milk products. GCMMF is the largest exporter of dairy produce from India under the brand name Amul.

Anand Milk Union LTD known as Amul was formed in 1946 as a dairy corporative movement in the country. It is managed by GCMMF, which is Joint Corporation of 2.6 million milk producers in Gujarat.

Amul is a household name in Indian homes, when one thinks of Amul one reminds of Amul butter with its polka dotted butter girl, famous for its longest running advertisement campaign “utterly butterly delicious amul” . First hoarding of Amul was put up in 1967 in Mumbai. Since then Amul is consistent in targeting its customers. Positioning of Amul is “Taste of India”. It has created value for everyone in value chain, be it customers or farmers.

Amul has Competitive sustainable advantage (CSA) over its competitors. Amul’s CSA lies in its procurement  part ,the ability to collect 447,000 litres of milk every day from 2.12 million farmers ,convert them into goods worth Rs 6 crore and distribute them to 5,00,000 retailers across country ,is not easy. No other dairy in India has such a sustainable procurement network.

Managing the large scale supply chain of Amul which begins from milk producer and ends with supply to customer from retailer is very critical job. It requires lot of dedication and hard work from all members of the corporation and also distributors and retailers across country

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It is not that Amul had a successful campaign, many of its ads backfired. One ad meant to target Marathi segment during Ganpati festival had to be removed under political pressure. In another incident on advertisement in which Amul girl was wearing Gandhi cap had to be again removed. In one another incident Amul had aired an ad portraying Hussain as “Heroine addiction”, for this Amul was taken to court.

Most of Amul’s communication is based on latest happenings in the country. That is why its ads are termed different from what is that of its nearest rival, Mother dairy. Most of Mother dairy ads are directly targeted to children where as Amul’s ad are on current affairs, in which adults are also involved.

Amul has high brand equity and umbrella branding of Amul has helped the company in bigger sense. Amuls’s brand name has helped its other brands also like Mitahi made, Amul Ice creams, chocolates, Amul Kool etc. So umbrella Brand, Amul is used to build and offer value to customers in bigger sense. In literal sense, a company has high brand equity if it has multi dimensions. Amul has explored various available opportunities to reach to mass customers. It has opened a community on public forums like orkut, sponsored events like Amul voice of India etc. The brand value of Amul will surely help company to maintain the status of largest food brand in India at least for sometime in future.