‘Bournvita, other brands to lose ‘Health Drink’ status’ screamed the headline of Economic Times [14 April 2024]. The trigger for this new announcement may be traced back to an influencer’s post about Bournvita’s sugar content. Let us pull back and understand what happened to this category.
Children find milk to be boring and tasteless. Moms have traditionally struggled to make their kids drink milk. A new category of milk additives were born many decades ago. In the 1970s we used to call them MFDs or Milk Food Drinks; there were two types of MFDs. There were milk substitutes that could be had by just adding hot water [Horlicks being the biggest, though there were a few other brands like in fray like Viva]. And there were chocolate flavoured milk additives or chocolate MFDs. There was Ovaltine which was popular in the 1960s and then came Bournvita, Maltova, Nutramul, Milo and many others. All these were simply drinks that were supposed to help a mom get her kid to drink milk.
Seeing the need to give milk more oomph and vigour, NDDB in the mid 1990s unleashed the ‘Doodh Doodh Wonderful Doodh’ campaign. The ad and the jingle is still remembered by folks who grew up seeing the ad on TV. While ‘Doodh Doodh’ ad did add a veneer of fun to milk, kids still wanted milk to get more exciting. And the sale of chocolate MFDs continued to boom.
It is to be noted that the cookie brand Oreo was marketed in the US and in many other countries as an aid for getting kids to drink milk. The famous ad showed how a mom teaches a little kid learn how to eat an Oreo cookie. Open the cookie. Lick the cream. Then dip the full cookie in milk and eat it. What is left unsaid is that then you drink the milk. This ‘ritualization’ or making drinking milk a fun activity became a part of how kids learnt to drink milk and eat cookies. There is a whole new business of ‘Brand Rituals’ where a brand tries to create a ritual around its consumption. Probably Oreo invented this new game.
What happened to MFDs? Well in the 1990s/2000s MFDs were getting buffeted by many pressures from brands that were offering more ingredients. Complan was the first to blow the war-cry by saying that ‘Complan is Complete Planned Food’. If you are an ad history buff then you will be amused to know that Complan at first tried to say that it is more complete than milk; you can guess where that went. Soon enough wisdom dawned and the brand was presented as a nutritional supplement for athletes and swimmers. One of the early ads of Complan featured the swimming legend Anita Sood. Then came the ‘I’m a Complan Boy. I’m a Complan girl’ ad featuring Shahid Kapoor and Ayesha Takia; the brand pivoted to show growth [height] in its ads. Let alone Complan, brands like Bournvita and Horlicks were also under attack from more credible brands like Pediasure. This brand went to doctors and focused on ‘Picky Eaters’ as their target. Incidentally Pediasure’s global campaign has its origins in the South East Asian country, Indonesia.
Brands like Bournvita over the last two decades have been changing their formulation and also their claims. ‘Tan Ki Shakthi, Man Ki Shakthi’ was a long running campaign. That gave way for stronger claims [backed by more ingredients]. But as they were adding more goodies, these brands [I am not singling out Bourvita here] needed to keep the sugar content high, lest kids find the taste unappetizing. And that was a slippery slope.
While brands make claims about their goodness and health, consumers are not fools. They do apply their own filter to discount what is being claimed. Action by government authorities and the advertising watchdog, ASCI, will help in toning down the messages. Finally, consumers will decide what is tasty and what is healthy and what is right mix to give their kids. Unfortunately, refined sugar has emerged as the new villain and these brands are all built on a foundation made of sugar. They have a tough act, to balance taste and goodness. Can they give up their ‘healty claims’ and pivot to become simple fun drinks that are tasty, in the broadest sense of the term? How will that affect their fortune? Will consumers run away in droves or recognize these brands end embrace them for what they are: good old fashioned milk-taste-modifiers.
Appeared originally in Economic Times 20 April 2024