Nescafe announces Deepika Padukone as brand ambassador

Nestle India has made Bollywood actoress Deepika Padukone as the brand ambassador for coffee brand Nescafe. This would be the first such celebrity association for Nescafe in its existence in India.

The new strategy will serve two purposes: first to get coffee sales back on track and secondly to increase its market share in the market.

“It is not about the market share but we have to grow the pie, so we have to invest in the category just like we are doing in other categories,” said Antonio Helio Waszyk, MD of Nestle India.

But according to the latest Nielsen data, Nestle's Nescafe had a market share of 52 per cent in Jan this year while Hindustan Unilever's Bru has just 34 per cent share. But in April, the market share for both Nescafe and Bru stood at 41 per cent each.

But that's not all, even coffee shop chain Cafe Coffee Day is planning to move beyond cafes and sell these products in small pack sizes in modern retail chains.

“We want to be like an FMCG company in terms of packaging and distribution. We see many consumers from abroad coming to India and we want to give our cafe experience to their homes too,” said Alok Gupta, director of Cafe Coffee Day.

But for Nestle, coffee is also one of its only high margin segment in its current portfolio.

With a new brand ambassador and aggressive marketing campaigns, profitability in the short term could get impacted.