Selling Liquid Gold: The Think-Smart-Spend-Less Marketing Behind India's Iconic Olive Oil Brand

The crowd at the India International Trade Fair stall was mind-boggling. Rows of people pushing past each other had nearly blocked out the modest-sized stall we had put up. Standing a few feet away to observe customers, the only thing I could see was the brightly lit green sign high above the back wall, which said simply: LEONARDO.

Upon seeing that sign—just a brand name, bereft of any accompanying product category—a middle-aged woman walking past me asked her companion in Hindi, ‘do you need to buy olive oil?’ This was astounding for me to hear. The lady looked like she was from a humble socio-economic category (SEC), not the usual SEC A we consider the target audience for a premium product like olive oil. My brand, Leonardo Olive Oil, was then, in 2012, a household name. That year, we not only clocked record sales but also won—largely due to the life-sized olive tree we had fabricated in the middle of the stall—the award for the Best Private Sector Stall at India's largest consumer trade show. That was the year we knew that Leonardo Olive Oil had truly arrived.

My company, Dalmia Continental Pvt. Ltd (DCPL), launched Leonardo Olive Oil in 2003. The idea came to my father, VN Dalmia, quite by chance on a holiday in Australia when a business school classmate of his showed him the olive trees growing wild in her yard and said to him, ‘VN, why don't you introduce olive oil in India? No one's doing it, it's the best oil for health and India will need it!’

The idea excited the entrepreneur in him but, initially, he was not clear on how to go about it. Should he invest in land, plant olive trees, and wait five years? Or should he import the oil from one of the Mediterranean countries? He decided on the latter for the beginning as the easier way out. The next question was whether to import a foreign brand or sell the oil under his own brand. He preferred the latter as safer, better in the long term even though it was more difficult. It was an option in which he would have no hesitation about investing in the project and its related marketing expenses. And thus, Leonardo Olive Oil was born.

My father decided to proceed with the project because no one in India was doing olive oil and he would thus have first-mover advantage, because India is World No. 1 in heart disease and that practically guaranteed him a market, because olive oil is the world's healthiest oil which prevents heart disease, fights diabetes, hypertension and cancer, in addition to numerous other health benefits. Olive oil, called ‘liquid gold’ by the Greek poet Homer, has the highest content, amongst all oils, of monounsaturated fatty acids, which reduce bad cholesterol and triglycerides. It also has the lowest percentages of saturated fat, the ‘bad’ fat, which increases cholesterol, blocks arteries, and causes heart disease. Olive oil is thus the healthiest edible oil for the prevention of heart diseases.

When Leonardo entered the market in 2003, total imports were averaging less than 1000 metric tons a year, with small quantities being extra virgin olive oil but most of it being olive oil, the intermediate grade. The brands were all imported and sold to consumers for body massage or, to a lesser extent, Italian cuisine. There was no promotion or education about product or usage. There was no organized competition to speak of.

Leonardo entered with a defined strategy to focus on Indian cuisine and daily use because that is where the volume would come from. We introduced olive pomace oil to the Indian market. Olive pomace oil is neutral in flavor, has a high smoking point, and is the lowest-priced grade; all of which make it ideal for everyday Indian cooking. We thus proposed clear product segmentation: Leonardo Olive Pomace Oil for everyday Indian cooking, the intermediate Leonardo Olive Oil for light cooking as in Western cuisine and for body massage, and the high-end Leonardo Extra Virgin Olive Oil for raw use as dressing and flavoring.

I entered the business in 2007, in my early twenties, after returning from the University of Oxford armed with a Master's in Literature, spending a year as a member of the Times of India Edit Page team, and with a novel nearing publication in India. Despite the fact that my grandfather, Ramkrishna Dalmia, was one of the pioneering industrialists of modern India, and my family has remained strongly committed to business over the years, I had a clear inclination towards the literary arts. Entering the business had been an experiment for me, an attempt to explore my business gene. I was hired by the company in the position of a Corporate Communications Executive, a profile that anyone else with my exact résumé would have been offered. I grew progressively within the company, with one promotion every year, first within the marketing department and then into a corporate role. From the very beginning, I discovered I had a natural knack for the work and enjoyed the mix of practicality and creativity required for the challenges of business.

In the early years, Leonardo was marketed with a clear below-the-line (BTL) approach, comprising one-to-one engagement with and direct marketing to the target group. Above-the-line, or promotion through mass media, would have meant big money and big losses right in the beginning. In BTL, results would be slow and awareness would spread mainly through education.

Awareness about olive oil was close to nil in the mid-2000s. Those who knew about it thought of it only as a massage oil. The even smaller number that knew one could cook with it used it for only salads or Mediterranean food. Nobody knew of its health benefits or the fact that it could be used in Indian cooking or that it was needed even at high prices. So, our communication message had two clear aims: first, to inform how olive oil was the world's healthiest oil; and second, how olive oil could be used for Indian food.

Our target consumer was the young urban professional. Like all emerging markets, India had a burgeoning middle class. In cities, joint families were breaking into nuclear families, leading to an easier acceptance of new ideas. The number of double-income-no-kids couples was on the rise. Modern format stores, in the form of self-service supermarket chains, were mushrooming in major metros and Tier II cities, taking over share, slowly but surely, from neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery stores. Foreign travel was no longer the preserve of the tiny percentage of rich Indians and was becoming accessible to the middle class as well, producing new tastes and increasing awareness of international products. Changing economic and social conditions triggered a high level of aspiration, which made premium or luxury products immensely marketable. This was accompanied by rising health awareness, which resulted in a boom in the nutrition, fitness and wellness industries. Like in all emerging markets, lifestyle diseases were becoming a national emergency, with India fast becoming the world capital for heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. Thus, conditions were ideal for a healthy, premium product like olive oil to gain traction. We had already made our aspirational product attractive in terms of price in order to remain accessible to the upwardly mobile consumer. We had taken care to not spread our net too wide by concentrating our distribution to where our target audience resided: A+class and A-class counters in the major cities. We had ensured that we owned our brand, to make worthwhile the heavy investment in marketing that was required.

We made a strong communication effort, printed literature, arranged presentations, panel discussions and seminars, did road shows, sponsored appropriate events, used the Internet and social media, worked with hospitals and clinics, associated with cancer societies, created point of sales material, did joint promotions with restaurants, sponsored art and theater events.

We looked for avenues where we could interact directly with the consumer. Our marketing team, including myself, would man our weekend sampling kiosks at supermarkets personally. We would fry tikkis (Indian friend snack made of potatoes and spices) in olive pomace oil and make customers taste them. ‘See? No change in flavor! And do you know the advantages to your health?’ we would say, before detailing out the nutritional benefits. If we sponsored a cultural event, we would give out a bottle of olive pomace oil with a pamphlet to each guest from a table manned by one of us to communicate our message individually to anyone interested to know. We participated in B2C exhibitions across the country because these would give us the chance to meet hundreds of consumers directly. We placed promoters, or sales advisors, in dozens of modern format stores to interact with shoppers and upgrade them to olive oil. Our marketing team fanned out across the country to meet nutritionists and doctors personally to explain the true benefits of olive oil and its suitability for Indian cooking. We hired visibility space in modern format stores so that huge pyramids of Leonardo Olive Oil would greet customers as they strolled the aisles, making a visual impression they were unlikely to forget. We hired shelf space, rented storefront boards for branding and put up point-of-purchase material in traditional mom-and-pop stores across the country.

All of this was handled personally by the marketing team, with as little as possible begrudgingly outsourced to external agencies. We were driven by an almost missionary zeal for our cause. We were a relatively small company with a big idea and we wanted the nation to hear it. There was none of the inertia and apathy that sometimes plagues large corporations who are ruled by processes and a hierarchical approval system that stymies grassroots initiatives.

Our distribution strategy was consistent with our other strategies. We had our own sales offices, staffed by our own employees. This was a costly way of undertaking the enterprise but, like all other aspects of our strategy, we were looking to the long term. We were promoting our own brand, Leonardo, and it had to be available consistently nationwide. This was no easy task. We knit our distribution network together slowly, strand by strand, adding more consignee agents, distributors, and retailers every year to carry Leonardo, ultimately, to more than 300 towns.

In 2007, DCPL spearheaded the formation of the Indian Olive Association, the national apex association of olive and olive oil producers, growers, distributors, importers, users, and consumers. The Association was established to promote, protect, and safeguard the interests of the olive and olive oil industry in India. It aims at promoting the consumption of olives and olive oil and expanding the market. It is also committed to representing the industry before the government, circulating information and statistics to members and obtaining the removal of grievances affecting the industry. One of the Association's landmark achievements came early in its existence. It represented to the government that olive oil needed to be treated as an edible oil and not a cosmetic product, which led to import duty on olive oil being reduced from 45 percent to nil for extra virgin olive oil and 7.5 percent for the other two refined grades. This masterstroke was a booster rocket for the olive oil market.

In the beginning, Leonardo's competition was brands distributed by food importers. These importers usually had no expenditure on sales infrastructure. Olive oil was a commodity for them, one of many items like pasta, cheese, chocolates, etc. They had no interest in educating the consumer or investing in promotion of the product. DCPL did nothing else. DCPL was an olive oil company. We made the investment. Others rode the wave we created.

When olive oil started to become a category to take note of, several FMCG majors also entered the fray with brands of olive oil. Most of these were unsuccessful and shut down within a couple of years. Every time one of our sales managers would agitatedly report that such-and-such major FMCG player had launched a brand of olive oil, with a subtext that now we were surely doomed because of their deep pockets, we were able to reassure them quite confidently. For we had understood over time that we had a magic formula that none of these companies had.

Most FMCG players failed in this category for a clear set of reasons. The first was that they used the same sales team to sell olive oil as their other products, say, soap or sunflower oil. This sales team had almost no interest in pushing for olive oil orders, which would constitute a minute percentage of their total sales for the day. Second, these companies tended to focus on the wrong variants of olive oil, namely extra virgin olive oil and olive oil, when the golden goose in India was clearly olive pomace oil. They were influenced by their international counterparts, who promoted these two as the superior grades and denigrated olive pomace oil as second rate. It was this olive pomace oil, however, that was suited to the Indian consumer, who needed a flavorless oil with a high-smoking point at a reasonable price. Third, these companies employed traditional marketing tools and were not able to implement the BTL initiatives that had proved so successful for Leonardo. Fourth, they were unable to work through influencers and the media to break the myths around olive oil. Lastly, they had an impatient approach and were unable to nurture the category over many years, which is what was required.

However, Leonardo was helped in its efforts by some large campaigns launched by international organizations. The International Olive Council (IOC), a UNDP-promoted organization, conducted two major campaigns to promote the use of olive oil during 2007 and 2009. The budget for the first campaign was €400,000 and for the second €800,000. In 2010, the Consortium of Guarantee of Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil launched a three-year campaign titled Olive it up financed by the EU and Italy with a budget of €2 million. Two smaller campaigns financed by the EU and Italy also ran in India—one sponsored by the Italian association UNAPROL and the other titled European Art of Taste (EAT). The EU and Spain also ran a promotion for olive oil under their Foods & Wines from Spain program and a much larger campaign titled European Quality Foods: Eating With Your Five Senses.

The olive oil market grew rapidly over the years, from 1,500 metric tons in 2006 to 5,000 metric tons in 2010. The category had now reached a point where the Leonardo brand needed to be differentiated and promoted. Only BTL would no longer suffice and an ATL approach was needed. In 2009, DCPL began advertising Leonardo in selective magazines like Reader's Digest, Femina, India Today, Woman and Prevention.

The market had become flooded with at least three dozen olive oil brands. Many of these were launched by fly-by-night operators because, by now, every importer and his cousin had got the ‘smart’ idea of importing ‘liquid gold’ to make a quick buck! As it is difficult to list a new brand in modern retail due to heavy listing fees or to place it in traditional retail due to nonacceptance of an unknown brand, they were unable to sell their product and ended up liquidating the stock at crazy discounts, in effect selling even below cost. This was creating havoc in the market.

At the same time, two or three brands, including Leonardo, were slowly gaining prominence as market leaders. Competition between these brands was hotting up. In 2010–2011, Leonardo Olive Oil had grown by 85 percent. In order to fuel this growth, maintain our first-mover advantage and consolidate our market leader position, we needed to develop an aggressive brand promotion campaign.

This is the point at which most brand managers would have commissioned consumer research, or years earlier in the case of most FMCG majors. Before a huge investment of this nature, it would be necessary to double-check assumptions, ascertain objectives, and develop guidelines for communication. Another unique element of our strategy with Leonardo Olive Oil is that we never engaged in consumer research. First, this was due to the entrepreneurial philosophy of Leonardo's founder, VN Dalmia, who believed in Henry Ford's famous statement that, ‘had he asked the consumer what he wanted, the latter would have asked for only a faster horse’. Second, research would have entailed a high cost and the investment never seemed viable. And third, our marketing team had worked so closely with consumers over the years that we felt we had their pulse and did not need an agency to interpret them for us. And so, even at this stage, other than a few dipsticks to test our assumptions, we proceeded based on our own thorough understanding of the brand and the consumer.

Leonardo's new creative campaign was conceived and designed by Euro RSCG, who was awarded the account after a multiagency pitch. The campaign was pegged on the slogan ‘Join the Change. Go Indiano.’ It was conceived as a movement, a change, and a revolution. The word ‘Indiano’, which means ‘Indian’ in the Italian language, stood for an entire lifestyle of eating healthy and living well, the way the Italians do, but in an Indian context.

The idea was built on the cultural similarities between India and Italy. Whether it is our love for food, our sense of style, our rich cultural heritage, or our laidback attitude to life, India and Italy are mirror images in so many ways. The communication for Leonardo Olive Oil was aimed at breaking the myths around this product and turning its very ‘alienness’ on its head to make it homely and familiar. If it is such an integral part of an Italian lifestyle, why should it not be indispensable in the Indian kitchen as well? Why should the Indian consumer not partake in the goodness that olive oil offers? As always, our communication focused on everyday Indian cooking. We promoted olive pomace oil, the perfect grade for Indian cooking due to its neutral flavor, high-smoking point, and lower price.

‘Join the change. Go Indiano.’ was launched in a high-decibel print campaign across leading newspapers like the Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, and others. We extended the same creative concept to our point-of-sale materials, online presence, and large-scale in-store branding. This campaign shot Leonardo into the limelight like never before.

We faced our share of criticism, of course, particularly from a tribe of belligerent food journalists who, in the garb of purists, wrote prolifically on how we were trying to hoodwink the unsuspecting Indian public by foisting an inferior product, olive pomace oil, something they alleged was considered trash in the rest of the world, onto them. We countered them meticulously in traditional media and online, stating and re-stating the facts about olive pomace oil, its benefits, and suitability for Indian cooking.

Despite these challenges, the ‘Go Indiano’ campaign was a massive success. In 2011–12, Leonardo Olive Oil grew by 120 percent.

In 2012, olive oil imports in India had risen to 12,000 metric tons. DCPL underwent a capital-raising exercise to fuel our aggressive growth plans and received funding from the Italian olive oil company that had been our suppliers since the launch of Leonardo in 2003, Nicola Pantaleo SPA. Now an Indo-Italian joint venture, DCPL sought to raise capital once again in 2013 in order to fund its investments in marketing and sales promotion. It was at this time that Cargill India, the Indian arm of the US-based multinational, showed an interest in acquiring Leonardo Olive Oil. There is an inflection point in the life of each product and we felt that Leonardo was at that point. It was poised to take the next leap forward to retain its leadership status and Cargill was the best new parent to promote that effort.

This was a win-win situation for all. For Cargill, which already has several leading oil and food brands in its portfolio, Leonardo was the perfect addition to help consolidate its position in the premium oils segment. For DCPL, it created liquidity, enhanced value, and strengthened our balance sheet. We retained our other brands including Hudson Canola Oil, a leader in the canola oil category. Under an arrangement with Cargill, we also retained our Leonardo Pasta, Table Olives and Pickles in Olive Oil. We remained advisors to Cargill for the Leonardo Olive Oil business and turned with renewed focus to our new baby: Hudson Canola Oil.

What we did for olive oil, we could do equally well, if not better for canola oil. Canola oil is extruded from the seeds of the yellow canola flower, grown primarily in western Canada. It has the lowest saturated “bad” fat content among all cooking oils, very high monounsaturated “good” fat content and a high percentage of the rare and valuable Omega-3 fatty acids. With its high-smoking point and neutral flavor, it is well suited to Indian cooking.

DCPL launched Hudson Canola Oil—again, a brand owned by us—in 2007. Produced and packed in Canada, Hudson had played second fiddle to Leonardo Olive Oil for the last seven years. All this while, though we treated Hudson as step-child because we needed all hands on deck for Leonardo Olive Oil, we knew that the canola oil market could out-strip olive oil in India. Some would argue that canola oil is healthier than olive oil. It is more affordable and less complicated, without multiple grades that confuse the customer.

The Leonardo story, though admired by industry stalwarts, business case writers, and the business media, had not been flawless. There were learnings for all of us. For example, we needed to have launched a basket of products right at the beginning in order to spread our overheads. We had launched canola oil, pasta, olives, pickle, and a few other short-lived products 2007 onwards—that was far too late. We had also learnt that new product categories should expect and plan for a backlash from several quarters, including products they are trying to replace, half-informed food writers and government bodies that are guided by outdated regulations. Our missteps with Leonardo Olive Oil had prepared us better for Hudson Canola Oil.

Today, canola oil is at the stage that olive oil was at in 2009. There is burgeoning awareness. Two or three brands are gaining prominence, while a smattering of small, regional players are popping up every now and then. In addition to strengthening and expanding our distribution, we are focusing this year on educating the consumer about canola oil: What is canola oil, what are its health benefits, and why is it needed even at higher prices? This can only be done, once again, through direct engagement with the target group. A high-touch BTL campaign, comprising sampling, free diet counseling at supermarkets by a qualified nutritionist, large product displays in stores, point of sale materials and participation in exhibitions will be supported by air cover in the form of a strong print ad campaign and heavy social media engagement. We have no doubt that Hudson Canola Oil will grow at over 100 percent this year and the next.

After seeing our Midas touch with brands, those in the industry and in the know have begun to regard Dalmia Continental as a little factory of premium food categories, a boutique marketing crucible that creates not only brands of the future but also inventive, hands-on, and nifty marketers. Partly, this is because our company uniquely combines the nimbleness of a start-up with the systems-driven culture of a large company, the global professionalism of a multinational with the thrift of a family business, and the financial acumen of industrialists with the vision and creativity of litterateurs. Today, it is an exciting time to be at Dalmia Continental, with a major achievement behind us and a future full of possibilities. The anticipation is palpable in the air.