CASE TITLE: PULSE CANDY- SUSTAINING THE

BRAND DIFFERENTIATION

SUBMISSION TO:
Mrs. Anugamini Srivastava

SUBMISSION BY:
Soumendu Dirghangi (41287)
Souvik Das (41292)
Sujit Sahu (41293)
Subhanjan Ray ()
Vyanktesh Chandely ()
Q1) What will be the products future?

Ans: Pulse Candy officially known as Pass-Pass Pulse is a hard boiled candy manufactured by DS
group. Since its launch, it has been a disruptor in its category & has taken the market by storm in the
recent years. The candy was first launched in raw mango flavor with core made up of tangy salt &
spices. Owing to its success in the recent times, the company has now launched various flavors of the
same like Guava, Orange, Pineapple etc.

To fix the demand-supply gap, the company should tie up with other manufacturing units. Right
now, they are operating with 7 manufacturing units which should be further increased. The plants to
be considered for tie up must be chosen depending on the geographical location of the plants. Plant
location nearby to the markets should be preferred so as to reduce the travel time to different
distributors & further retailers. The average current production capacity of the DS group remains at
1200-1300 & they further aim to increase it to 1500-1700 tonnes (Source: Forbes India). This will
help in preventing the local manufacturers to imitate their product.

International markets

The DS group has already entered the international markets and are placing their different

variants in the UK, Gulf countries, and Southeast Asian markets such as Singapore and

Malaysia. The company aims primarily selling the candy in the Indian ethnic stores which are

a network shops where the Indian diaspora shops for ethnic ingredients and brands from the

home market.

Q.2. Do people like the candy?

Ans: Consumers’ opinion about the product have been obtained websites like www.amazon.com ,
www.mouthshut.com and www.hometesterclub.com. The reviews are analysed using text analytics
and the following results were obtained:

Further analysing the sentiments of the sample, the following results were obtained:
  Hence, 66.7% like the candy while 26.7% disliked it and 6.7% maintained a neutral opinion.
 Positive results can be attributed to keywords like happy, favourite, quality, original etc.
 Negative results can be attributed to keywords like disappointment, sad etc.

Q.3. What do people feel for it?

Ans: Using the “emotion analysis” function, we found out the underlying emotion for each of the
reviews. The different emotions observed were:

 Happy
 Excited
 Sad
 Angry
 Bored

On further analysing the data, the following results were found:

  Happy and excited are the positive emotions and they are the dominant emotions with
percentages of 33.3% and 26.7%. The cumulative percentage of positive emotions is hence
60%.
 The remainder 40% comprises of sad (20%), angry (13.3%) and bored (6.7%).
 Hence, it can be concluded that majority of consumers show a positive emotional response to
the product.

Q4) Does it require any change?

Ans: The tremendous growth of the Pulse candy has witnessed a steady & significant fall year on
year. The growth rates in the recent years have dimmed. The product although disruptive since its
launch, needs to grow & innovate in order to sustain the growing competition in the confectionary
market. Small, Medium & Large confectioners are launching new products day by day & hence the
market is highly competitive. There have been cases where the confectioners have fizzled out from
the market within a few quarters. Hence the primary focus should be now to make the ‘pulse’ Brand
strong & sustainable enough so as to withstand the volatility of the market. Despite being launching
pulse in different flavors, the mango segment still remains the undisputed market leader contributing
almost 80% of the total sales. Hence proper & systematic Research should be conducted to find the
flaws in other flavors. Each flavor needs to be studies thoroughly in terms of taste preferences,
purchase patterns, reach & customer loyalty. An industry benchmarking of all the flavors can be
created below which if scored, the product should be taken off from the market so as to avoid the
unnecessary losses

As the candy is still looking good, focus also should be laid on the Asian countries as they have
similar love for spicy & ‘chatpata’ taste like Indian consumers. Target markets should be set & only
if the product responds well, it should be launched in the entire country as done before. Proper
marketing penetration to be done by penetration pricing as well as the reach should be extensive using
the distribution network so that the candy reaches to each & every section of the people. Products like
‘chatpata’ mango juice can be launched in the market as a new innovative product & should be
penetrated & promoted under the brand name ‘Pulse’. The brand name to be leveraged so as to attract
consumers for the new innovated product

An attempt to increase the transaction in B2B segment can be done. This can include any restaurant
chain, hotel chains, airlines, theme parks, resort groups etc. It can be used in B2B as a refreshing
candy or welcome candy for customers.