CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION &

GLOBAL BRANDS

INDIVIDUAL REPORT

SPRING 2020

Module Code: MKT4146

MSc Corporate and Marketing Communications

Report prepared by:

MSIS Number: M00719424 – Lubna Pathan

Word Count: 2497

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary..................................................................................................................................3
1.0 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Kellogg’s Analysis in the Indian Market...........................................................................................4
2.1 Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (S.T.P.)....................................................................4
2.1.1. Segmentation.........................................................................................................................4
2.1.2. Targeting.................................................................................................................................4
2.1.3. Positioning..............................................................................................................................5
3.0. Strategy: Standardization VS Adaptation...................................................................................5
4.0 The Marketing Mix..........................................................................................................................5
4.1. Product...........................................................................................................................................6
4.2 Pricing Strategy..............................................................................................................................6
4.3. Place and Distribution...................................................................................................................8
4.4. Promotion and Communication...................................................................................................9
5.0 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
6.0. Reference List..............................................................................................................................16

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Executive Summary

The report analyzed Kellogg’s marketing efforts in India using Hofstede’s cultural
dimensions. The analysis also revealed that both standardization and adaptation
strategies were used by Kellogg’s India. Some products exist in both portfolios, while a
few are specific to the Indian population. They also use almost the same social media
platforms and associations towards children.
After selling its standardized cornflakes in India, Kellogg’s realized the value of
adaptation. The adaptation has been received well by Indian consumers in terms of the
flavor of the cereal and smaller packaging, leading to Kelloggs India’s turnover reaching
its Rs 1000 crore/ USD 137 million mark (Pinto, 2019). However, reviews left by
consumers on Kelloggs India’s social media pages deter consuming the cereal due to
subpar quality and consequent poor customer service, which makes them look like a
careless, giant American multinational corporation earning profits through Indian
consumers.

1.0 Introduction 

Kellogg’s first opened shop over a hundred years ago in 1906 in Michigan, U.S. After
cumbersome experimentation, founder W.K. Kellogg perfected the first batch of
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and changed the history of breakfast forever. Soon, Kellogg’s
diversified their line of cereals and now operates in 180 countries, one of which is the
south Asian country, India (Kellogg’s Company, 2020).
With Kellogg’s highest achievement being the breakfast on the trip to the moon in 1969,
and retail value sales of $16 billion, Kellogg Co ranks 12th in the world’s packaged food
companies in 2019, with the key sales being in breakfast cereals, which will be the
focus of this report. Home ground, the U.S., is most crucial for Kellogg’s. However, it
has established itself as the leader in breakfast cereal in India by customizing to appeal
to local tastes and expand channel coverage.

2.0 Kellogg’s Analysis in the Indian Market

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2.1 Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (S.T.P.)

S.T.P. is a 3-step process used in marketing to determine the types of customers that
exist in a potential market (segmentation), select the consumers which can be served
best (targeting), and finally, implement chosen image and appeal to the chosen
segment (U.S.C. Marshall, 2018).

2.1.1. Segmentation

Segmentation of a market refers to segregating individuals into groups of people in

order to understand their needs or wants and cater to them, respectively. Segmentation
is done according to demographic, geographic, behavioral, and psychographic
segmentation. Kellogg’s geo-demographic segmentation in India is urban men, women,
and children of all age groups with lower-middle to upper-class incomes. Kellogg’s
psychographic segmentation presents as a breakfast choice for the health-conscious
who have little time to spend on making breakfast from scratch and advertisements that
promote the cereal’s nutritional values. It is also advertised as a nutritious snack for
children.

2.1.2. Targeting

After breaking down Kellogg’s consumers into main segments, they are targeted with
different marketing efforts to mirror their respective needs and desires. Kelloggs uses
differentiated marketing, with different products catering to different needs of the
consumers. For example, Kellogg’s Chocos are targeted to children, Special K to
women, Kelloggs Original to men and different flavors to different individuals in each
family.

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2.1.3. Positioning

Positioning aims at establishing a brand over its competitors and position themselves to
consumers as a distinct and more appealing brand than the rest in its category.
Kellogg’s has positioned its cereals as a sweet, nutritional, healthy and fast breakfast as
compared to its Western counterpart of bread and butter, a junk food substitute for
children and as a weight management product for working women.

3.0. Strategy: Standardization VS Adaptation

Standardization is the marketing tactic of using “the same range of products, pricing,
promotional and location strategies”. Standardization takes place due to globalization
and the subsequent homogenization of consumer’s needs and wants. Adaptation is
modifying products and services, their pricing, promotional, and distribution strategies to
fit the needs of consumers better locally (Krishnamurthy, 2016).

Kellogg’s learned from its initial steps in India that product adaptation was a requirement
to woo the Indian consumer. In addition to selling its original, standardized cornflakes
and failing, they adjusted their product and re-launched using sweetened cereals,
Frosties to the Indian consumers in 1997, who accepted it. This began Kelloggs’
adaptation journey to packaging as well by introducing smaller boxes for the price-
sensitive consumers (Chandra, Rau & Ryan, 2002).

Additionally, while Kellogg’s did maintain its logo and brand imagery, it introduced
certain Indian words to its advertisements, such as “Shakti”, which means power. 

4.0 The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is a collection of marketing tools used by companies to fulfill their
marketing objectives in the target market (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). Appropriate use of

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marketing mix provides guidance for allocating resources, responsibilities, and
communicate effectively with the target audience to achieve marketing objectives.

4.1. Product

Created in early 1900, Kellogg’s became synonymous with breakfast, providing an

energy-packed, nutritious meal, all of which came in a single box. In its home country,
the U.S., the taste and variety in flavors still keep Kellogg’s cereals famous for breakfast
(Saxena, 2019). However, Kelloggs’ bland cereal did not sit well with an audience
belonging to the country of spices, India. Kellogg’s overcame the issue by introducing
sweetened and Indian flavored cereals such as Frosties, Kesar Pista & Badam,
Kellogg’s Strawberry, and Kellogg’s Chocos & Special K for the weight conscious.
Another obstacle was that Indian custom calls for consuming hot milk, over cold milk,
which Kellogg’s India had to persuade consumers to try.

Kellogg’s India & U.S. have a few uniform products, such as the original Kellogg’s
cornflakes, Special K, and All-Bran. However, Kellogg’s U.S. has many more products
fitting the demand of American consumers, such as Pop-Tarts Cereal, Strawberry
Krispies, Kellogg’s Krave, Raisin Bran, and Kellogg’s Froot Loops.

Kellogg’s India enjoys majority share in the Indian breakfast cereal market. However,
fierce competitors such as M.T.R. Food, Maggi, and Saffola are producing packaged
Indian breakfast items such as upma, idli, dosa, vada, and oats, which is a cultural
reflection through Indian cuisine. 

4.2 Pricing Strategy

Kellogg’s in the U.S. is exceptionally well known and has around 70% market share in
the organized cereal category, encouraging consumers to buy Kellogg’s cereals over its
competitors. Huge consumption and popularity makes Kellogg's much cheaper in its

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home country than in India, where it is almost thrice as expensive, with lesser quantity
as seen below.

Figure 1: 479 gm of Special K cereal in the U.S on amazon.us costs USD 3.88

Figure 2: 390 gm of Special K cereal in India on amazon.in costs Rs 775/ USD 10.61

Kellogg’s only crossed sales of Rs 514 crore/ USD 70 million – in March 2013, when
they realized that the Indian consumer is price-driven and introduced single-serve
affordable packs that are affordable for the Indian lower-middle, middle & upper class.

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Even with a massive population of 1.38 billion people, and Kellogg’s India’s latest
turnover of Rs 1000 crore/ USD 137 million, it has penetrated a mere 3-4% of
households (Pinto, 2019)

Brand Quantity Price (Rs) Price (USD)

General Mills 318 gm 750 10.28
Monsoon Harvest 350 gm 260 3.57
Nestle Plus 475 gm 157 2.15
Percy 340 gm 449 6.16
Post 311 gm 1099 15.07
Soulfull 1000 gm 499 6.84
Weetabix 450 gm 399 5.47
Bagrry’s 800 gm 310 4.24
Kellogg's India 360 gm 775 10.63
Kellogg's U.S 479 gm 283 3.88

Table I: Kellogg's India/ U.S & India Competitor Prices through Amazon.in

Kellogg’s also seems opportunistic to leverage the brand name and use premium
pricing strategy as compared to its local competitors such as Bagrry’s, Percy, and
Monsoon Harvest as well as international competitors, such as Nestle Plus cereals
which are priced lower than Kellogg’s India as seen in Table I.
The pricing can be tied to the market share leadership strategy, where the company
with the largest market share will enjoy the lowest costs and highest long-term profits.
This can be seen with Kellogg’s India as it dominates 30% of market share in the
breakfast cereal category in India (Mitra, 2018) and aims to double revenue in the next
five years and increase market penetration in urban and rural areas in India, (Rakshit,
2019).

4.3. Place and Distribution 

Kellogg established a 35 million sq. Ft manufacturing plant & warehouse facility in

Taloja in 1994, which reduces transportation costs as it is in the state of Maharashtra,
the largest market for breakfast cereal in India. Keeping price-driven Indian consumers
in mind, Kellogg’s has localized raw and packing material to reduce import duty. They

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have also set up a distribution network in all key states of India, having 18 storage hubs
serving over 200 distributors (Indian Brand Equity Foundation, no date).

4.4. Promotion and Communication

Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions provide insight about varying cultures and values
countries and their nationals have and their implication in a business context. With
globalization transporting individuals and firms from their home country to another for
better opportunities and business expansion, Hofstede’s cultural framework becomes
crucial to comprehend the cultural values of that country for a smooth transition and
valid promotion and communication.

Websites

Figure 3: Kellogg’s U.S Website Landing Page

The official website of Kellogg’s U.S shows a carousel of photos on the landing page,
includes a Disney+ subscription trial experience courtesy of Kellogg’s U.S when buying
select Kellogg’s cereals. The website contains a virtual assistant, engaging content, and
attractive offers for website visitors such as Kellogg’s Family Rewards and link to the

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Kellogg’s Store website where potential consumers can purchase memorabilia and a
personalized cereal box. This high level of interactivity with consumers through the
Kelloggs U.S website is correlated to its low power distance wherein Western cultures
people rely on such mediums for information search (Hofstede Insights, 2020). U.S also
scores low on uncertainty avoidance, which reflects in their willingness to try out new
things. Kellogg’s taps this with the massive range of breakfast products it has to offer in
the U.S, such as toaster pastries, Eggo, and nutri-grain bars.

Figure 4: Kellogg’s India Website Landing Page

Kelloggs India’s landing page also contains a carousel of photos on the landing page,
emphasizing on price value and packaging size of cereal boxes. Kellogg’s cereal brand
portfolio selective, which includes Kellogg’s Granola, Special K, Chocos, Oats, Muesli,
All-Bran & Corn Flakes. The website gives the impression that it is kept for maintaining
Kelloggs India’s presence, with no engaging content for website visitors except for the
recipes section. The lack of interactivity with consumers on Kelloggs India’s website can
be attributed to India’s low score on individualism on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.
Having a collectivist mindset, consumers rely heavily upon information through private
sources rather than an impersonal one. High power distance in the case of India can be

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unfortunate for Kellogg’s because even if children or young adults would want to try the
cornflakes due to their digital interaction, chances are adults might not listen to them.

Social Media

Figure 5: Kellogg’s U.S Twitter

Kellogg’s U.S & India have kept the same iconography in terms of the logo with no color
changes to maintain uniformity mostly. As seen on Twitter, a common theme for both
Kellogg’s U.S and Kellogg’s India is their work with school children. In the U.S, they
have sponsored USD 10,000 for middle school sports programs competition. Scoring
high on individualism, Western societies like the U.S are into noble causes, which
Kellogg’s U.S tapped by giving the sponsorship (Johnson, 2018).

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 Figure 6: Kellogg’s India Twitter

In India, they tied up with Sesame Street to create awareness about malnutrition
and breakfast in children. They also created a program called “Bright Start,”
where underprivileged children would be served breakfast cereal every day. This
program, which is not a one-time phenomenon such as sponsorship, converges
with the high level of collectivism India scores on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions,
as people are more “collective conscious” and believe in sharing with others.
Feeding underprivileged children is also a social cause that strikes a nationalistic
chord with the Indian consumers as more than 50% of Indian children are
malnourished due to poverty, further feeding into the collectivist mindset.

Other than these campaigns, Kellogg’s U.S seems to have a limited presence on
Twitter, while Kellogg’s India has a scarce presence, with both promoting
different cereals under Kellogg’s respective portfolio.

Kellogg’s U.S diversified and created Facebook accounts for different varieties of
cornflakes such as Krave, Nutri-Grain, and Frosted Flakes and does not have its
own Facebook account. Kellogg’s India, on the other hand, uses Hindi, an
extensively spoken language in India, as well as English on their posts, with their

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Breakfast Se Badhkar (Greater than Breakfast) campaign being most prominent.

Figure 7 & 8: Kellogg’s India Facebook Posts

There also lies an undertone of masculinity, with posts targeting mothers with
young children who are fussy eaters, and videos emphasizing on the mother-
child bond, with women being in the typical Indian motherly role. It comes as no
surprise as India scores a 56 on masculinity on Hofstede’s cultural dimension
scale. This means that the Indian society campaigns for maximum differentiation
between gender roles in a family.

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 Colors are crucial for the marketing mix, be it
product or promotions, it helps the brand
stand out against competitors and create its
own identity. Kellogg’s U.S uses colorful and
attractive imagery on Instagram that would
help incite consumer interest by triggering an
emotional response towards it. With 56% of
Instagram users being women, pink and
bright colors seem to be dominating their
feed, an attribute fed by the high masculinity
level in the U.S. where there are colors
specified towards gender, such as pink to
women. However, the page lacks consumer

Figure 8: Kellogg’s U.S

engagement.
Instagram

Indian culture is famous for its vibrant colors

for many purposes, such as festivities, spices,
and food.

Red in India is known for its dynamism, which

seems to be used often in imagery and text on
Kelloggs India’s Instagram page. Yellow, on
the other hand, represents sanctity in India,
and here is used for its vibrancy.

Saffron is the most revered color in India owing

to the large Hindu population, which has been

Figure 9: Kellogg’s India the predominant color in their post for Republic
Instagram Day. To the smaller population of Sikhs in
India, it is also a color of joy.

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Retail

Kellogg’s U.S opened an “all-day cereal café” in New York, called Kellogg’s New York.
They teamed with celebrity chefs to give a twist to the regular cereal experience, where
cereal is sold at $7.50/ bowl at the café (Mahdawi, 2016). This attempt by Kellogg’s can
be tied to the high level of indulgence that U.S scores on Hofstede’s cultural dimension,
as splurging $7.50 on a bowl of cereal can denote to higher importance given to leisure
for a simple activity such as having cereal (Hofstede, 2011). Indulgence is also high in
countries with enough food, which is seen in the U.S with almost 40% of its population
being obese, Kellogg’s seems to be pursuing the sugary cereal route. On the other
hand, no such attempt has been made in India, a country where little importance is
given to indulgence where people would think twice before treating themselves to a
bowl of expensive, imported breakfast cereal.

In some retail stores in the U.S such as Meijer, Kellogg’s has also placed itself in the
produce aisle to be seen as “healthy,” another product placement attempt in U.S
supermarkets that does not exist in India (Best, 2016).

5.0 Conclusion

After an analysis of Kellogg’s in its home country, the U.S, a developed, western
country compared to its eastern counterpart India, a third-world country, it is seen that
Kellogg’s widely relies on the adaptation strategy in India. Marketing mix in both
countries vary, and so does the use of the digital medium. However, Kellogg’s sales in
the U.S are falling, as well as its retail sale price in India (Euromonitor, 2020), which
pushes a need for Kellogg’s to re-evaluate its marketing efforts with context to culture.

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6.0. Reference List

 Best, J. (2016) Kellogg says good-bye to the cereal aisle – and moves in with produce
http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/07/14/cereal-vegetable-aisle (Accessed: 03 March
2020)
 Blatter, J (no date) Glocalization. Available at:
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 Chandra, A., Rau, P.A., Ryans, J.K. (2002) India Business: Finding Opportunities in this
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%20kelloggs%20india&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q=standardization%20versus
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(Accessed: 03 March 2020)

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 Indian Brand Equity Foundation (no date) Kellogg India. Available at:
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 Jagannathan, R. (2014) How the MNC ego blinded Kellogg’s, Coke and Unilever in
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 Kellogg’s Company (2020) Our History. Available at:
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 Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles of Marketing. Boston: Pearson
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 Pinto, V.S. (2019) Haldiram’s deal on the cards? Kellogg eyeing acquisition to bump up
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(Accessed: 02 March 2020)
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 Saxena, J (2019) How Cereal Became the Quintessential American Breakfast. Available
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