Mars Food, Mars Inc’s non-confectionery arm in the UK, has just undertaken its first new product launch for nine years, with the introduction of the Asian ready meal concept, PurAsia. In this month’s Just the Answer interview, Michelle Russell spoke with Mars Food marketing director Paul Aikens about the launch, the Asian ready meals category and ‘gastrosexual’ consumers.
just-food: How is the launch of PurAsia going?
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Aikens: We’ve been very busy. We started off with Matt Dawson on BBC Breakfast talking about what we’ve been working on in terms of the new brand launch and how we are marketing it. Now we’re carrying on with more activity to support the launch.
j-f: This is Mars Food’s first brand launch for nine years. Why this particular product, and why now?
Aikens: It really comes down to a consumer insight around the idea that a lot of people are going out to eat in Asian restaurants or getting Asian takeaways, whether that’s Chinese, Indian or increasingly cuisines like Thai. The majority of those people don’t cook that sort of food at home. And the key barrier that we identified is that, although people think they could have a go at cooking it, they don’t think their results would be as good as the quality that they would get in a restaurant. So that was the insight that led us to develop PurAsia, tapping into that and giving people something that is simple to cook and still achieves some fantastic results at the end of 20 or 30 minutes.
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j-f: Why did you decide on ethnic cuisine? Do you feel there is a growing market for more diverse foods?
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By GlobalDataAikens: That is actually right. I guess there are a couple of trends that mean Asian cuisine is growing. Part of it is down to the growth in Asian restaurants. People are having the opportunity to eat out more and taste different foods compared to ten or 15 years ago. I think another factor is the increase in travel and travel further afield. So, whereas ten years ago most people would go on holiday to Europe, now a lot more people are travelling over to Asia, and discovering new foods that they have never tried before there. And when they come back they want to try and recreate something like that when they are at home.
j-f: Indian and Thai ready meals both recorded a decline in sales by value last year as more consumers take on the challenge of cooking from scratch. Do you think this is really a growing market?
Aikens: Yes absolutely. I am sure there is still a role for ready meals in terms of something that is quick and convenient and different. So I think there is a time of the week where people just want something as quickly as they can, and that’s the role that a ready meal can play. But then there are other times in the week where they actually do want to spend 20 or 30 minutes in the kitchen.
j-f: Do you think it also has a lot to do with the fact that consumers are now more aware of what is going into their foods?
Aikens: I think that is a really good point. As people are becoming more aware of, not just additives, but following the Government’s campaign, about levels of salt, people are more aware of what goes into their food and this is a way of them actually controlling that.
j-f: Who is your main target market for the new brand?
Aikens: We are actually targeting this group of people that we are calling ‘gastrosexual’. This is a term for people, as we were just discussing, that really get some pleasure out of cooking and actually want to get involved in it. The reason that they cook is basically for the enjoyment of cooking, and also for the praise they get from the people they have cooked it for.
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Paul Aikens, Marketing Director for Mars Food |
In terms of the target market, it is not to say that all the people that are going to buy this product are going to be really confident cooking Asian food. We have identified that actually this is a way to get people who are confident cooking to create some really good results quite quickly. But we also believe this is a way that we can get people who are less confident about Asian cooking to actually try something at home and be very happy with the results.
j-f: So why did you choose Matt Dawson in particular to front the brand launch?
Aikens: Essentially because he personifies our ‘gastrosexual’ consumer in the way that actually he has got a really busy life, he is a very good cook having won Celebrity Masterchef two years ago, but we also, after talking to him, found out that in terms of the relationship he has with his girlfriend, he is the person in the kitchen who cooks away; she is delighted by his results but she also ends up having to clean up after him.
j-f: So are you marketing it more as a masculine brand?
Aikens: No not really. I mean ‘gastrosexuals’ can be men or women and we still know that, despite a massive growth in men cooking, women still do the majority of the food shopping and women still do more cooking than men. So we’ve used Matt to really personify a type of consumer that fits just as equally being a woman who cooks for the same reasons and enjoys it.
j-f: Why is the new brand only available in Tesco for the first nine months?
Aikens: Given that this is our first new brand launch in nine years, we wanted to launch with one customer where we could actually support the brand, learn from the results of the launch and then roll it out to other customers. So essentially, over the next six to nine months we’ll be working with Tesco to make sure we have got everything right around the brand before we roll it out to other customers, and put a full-blown marketing support package around it.
j-f: Who do you see as your main competitors for the new brand?
Aikens: There isn’t an obvious competitor so I guess thinking about the total Asian food market, and also the economic climate that we’re in, I think a lot of people who have discovered PurAsia will see it as a way of recreating what they can have in a restaurant but at a much lower cost in the comfort of their own home.
No doubt there are consumers at the moment that will buy other wet cooking sauces, where it is just a matter of cooking your meat and vegetables and just adding a jar of sauce. But I think the key difference for us, and the thing that consumers we’ve actually shown PurAsia to really love about it, is the involvement in the cooking process that you don’t really get with the conventional wet cooking sauce.
j-f: Do you see a lot of scope for growth in the ethnic cuisine market?
Aikens: Yes we’ve seen continual growth in the ethnic cuisine market over the last five to ten years and we don’t see that trend slowing down. I think we’ve got healthy growth within the grocery sector at the moment and also the restaurant and takeaway sector is growing as well. So I think that combination gives us a secure future going forward.
j-f: Are there any other developments on the horizon for Mars Food?
Aikens: No. At the moment this is our key focus going forward. We’ve only just launched it in Tesco. Assuming that this is going to be a success, there may be more extensions to the PurAsia range in the future but currently we have not got plans to do that.
