How Parle-G became India's favourite biscuit

Siddhi Kamble, TYBA
2020-2021

Image retrieved from: Postoast

Parle- G is the world’s largest selling biscuit and also India’s 8th most trusted brand. Whether it’s with a steaming cup of chai or with a mug of lukewarm Bournvita, Parle- G is almost every Indian’s go-to biscuit. Some like it in the form of a pulpy mixture at the bottom of their cup of milk or tea, while others like to dunk their Parle- G for just the right amount of time - not too long, lest the biscuit would sink to the bottom of the cup and your tea time wouldn’t have that happy of an ending. While most middle- class Indian mothers have attempted to bake their first cake using Parle- G, it also is used to quickly concoct a healthy and simple porridge for babies. It has created for itself a well deserved place in almost all Indian kitchens - you will find a packet or two nicely kept in an airtight plastic or steel container that is brought out during tea time. The same is the case at every tea stall - you’ll find them kept in a large plastic jar. It has been in the market for decades, and is enjoyed by people of all age groups, all income groups and all backgrounds alike. Shiv Visvanathan, a sociologist, says, “It is not a biscuit. It is a biskoot.” The word biskoot is an Indianised version of the word biscuit and has found itself a place in the masses’ lexicon. The parent company, Parle - even with its eclectic variety of products - is known by people as Parle- G, and 80% to 90% of all of the parent brand’s recent sales growth collected during the lockdown comes from Parle-G. 

I remember watching a video where a cafe in Los Angeles, owned by Indian brothers, has a ‘Parle- G ice-cream sandwich’ in the desserts section of its menu. This goes to say that Indians have essentially attached the biscuit to their Indian identity. Chai is a beloved beverage among Indians, and Parle- G has always been its most loyal companion. I believe Parle- G’s success also has something to do with how beautiful a combination chai, a beverage we Indians literally swear by,  and Parle-G make. I have watched several ‘foreigners react to Indian snacks’ videos and in every one of those videos, you will find the foreigners tasting a Parle- G biscuit. Their overly amazed faces after they take their first bite leave the comments section flooded with several Indians commenting about their love for the biscuit. A netizen even called Parle- G an emotion, and I believe this could never be a contentious topic. The biscuit has indeed created a special place in our hearts, and to find an Indian who hasn’t consumed Parle- G at some point in their life is as good a challenge as getting a camel through the eye of a needle. 

Parle- G has always been a biscuit of the masses. Its mass- market appeal began in the pre- Independence period, when the brains at Parle planned to bring out a biscuit for the common Indian man. The popularity of this biscuit is such that even today, Parle is known to Indians as a brand for the masses. Even though Parle came out with its ‘Platina’ products later on, it still stood to symbolise a mass brand. It’s low price made Parle-G a poor man’s biscuit and 50% of its sales have been coming from rural India. Today, you will find Parle- G packets that cost Rs.1, Rs. 2, Rs.3 and Rs. 4 in tier 2 and 3 cities as well as in rural markets. At a time when biscuits were a luxury, Parle offered both quality and quantity at an affordable price, making it an instant hit among the masses. Even today, doctors would ask you to “eat a Parle- G biscuit” before you take your medicine. This is because the brand has managed to retain its quality, making it a trusted energy- giving food product. 

Initially, the Swadeshi movement had a lot to do with what Parle had grown to become. Mohanlal Dayal, the man behind it all, was a strong supporter of the Swadeshi movement. He saw that the candies and biscuits available in the Indian market were not accessible to the masses and pledged to make these products more affordable for the common man. He did so by starting a factory in Parla where he, along with 12 others, manufactured candies and biscuits. The brand’s motive was to be price- sensitive as the exported biscuits could only be enjoyed by the wealthy. It competed with the foreign brands that existed then, and this kindled patriotic sentiments among the masses. The growing support for homegrown products allowed Parle- G to reach its consumers. It has been deemed a desi product that is enjoyed by Indians all around the globe thanks to Parle’s massive distribution network.

Parle’s print advertisements asked the common man to stop consuming British glucose biscuits and instead opt for Indian ones. Here, the active audience theory comes into the picture. This theory suggests that the audience actively engages - emotionally and cognitively- with the media and makes sense of the symbols and messages that media conveys. This interpretation of symbols and messages is influenced by their values, beliefs, ideals, family, socio- economic background, et cetera. Audiences diverge in their interpretations, generating different  understandings from the same text (Livingstone, 2000). To advertise its biscuits, Parle opted for the print medium, where it advertised its fresh out-of-the-oven biscuits with an illustration of a woman grazing her cows. It is also important to note that it is not just the message that the audience makes sense of, but the medium, too, is equally significant. Here, I found in Marshall McLuhan’s (1964) famous line from his work ‘Understanding Media’ a relevant concept to discuss. His line, “The medium is the message” aptly states that the medium used itself is extremely instrumental when it comes to shaping our human and cultural experience. The medium holds value as well, and we often end up focusing only on the content. Having emphasised on the importance of media, what I grasped from McLuhan’s statement was that by choosing the print medium to advertise at that point of time, Parle-G succeeded in reaching the masses. Later, in the late 1990s, it also advertised on Doordarshan, a channel that was then popular among those who could not afford  a cable TV connection.

Additionally, when we look at the content that Parle- G employed on its packages and advertisements from the lens of the masses, the usage of a woman with her cows in a field might have struck a chord with the common man, conveying that this biscuit was not just for those with deep pockets, but could also be afforded by those who worked in fields. In a time when biscuits were imported, which consequently made them expensive and affordable only to the elites, the common man regarded Parle- G as their brand. Just as everybody is equal in a chai shop, everybody seemed to be equal in the eyes of the owners of Parle- G. The fact that the biscuit was made in India for the Indian palate, while also being affordable and of great quality, conjured up a  sense of inclusion that the brand radiated which was adulated by the masses, and this led to the biscuit being a hit. That brand is now called by its parent company as a ‘mass-tige’ brand, which denotes its mass appeal and prestige in equal amounts.

The active audience theory claims that we all interpret symbols and messages differently. When I think Parle, I think simplicity and taste. To those from disadvantaged backgrounds, Parle- G is consumed for its affordability, nutrition and is considered by them to be a source to satisfy their hunger. The girl we see on the packet is something that attracts children and mothers. Parle- G’s mascot - a guileless, chubby girl with a nice bob haircut who is lovingly known as the ‘Parle- G girl’ - is an illustration that was made by an artist named Maganlal Daiya. The girl on the packet serves the purpose of enhancing the memorability of Parle- G, and makes it indeed relatable. You could identify the girl at any time, any place, for her image has been ingrained in our minds. We instantly associate the girl with Parle- G, which we further associate with simplicity, taste, and Indian-ness. A similar mascot was designed for Amul. Mascots create the essential human and emotional connect that the audience and consumers look for. These mascots embody the brand’s integrity, and evokes emotional responses from its audience and consumers. Only the image of the girl is enough to make us feel a sense of nostalgia, and to the Indian diaspora, it brings back memories of the essence and taste of India.

A few years after its inception. Parle-G had its eyes set on television advertising after having acknowledged the literacy challenges faced by those in rural areas. It also realized the need to drop the plan of growing its consumer base around it being a ‘Tasty and healthy snack filled with energy’ and instead chose to tap the emotional quotient of its audience - something to which the masses could relate to better. After all, it is no new fact that emotions can countermand rationality, and if a certain brand wants to effectively communicate with the audiences, they could do so by boosting engagement by creating interesting and engaging narratives to which the audience could relate with. This strategy was quickly adopted by Parle and it worked wonders, with the audiences attaching significant emotional experiences to the brand and its mascot. The biscuit had already garnered respect and loyal consumers from all over India because of their low cost strategy, complete with great quality and taste, and its advertisements only further showed that the company was staying true to its original philosophy. This was because their advertisements didn’t make the audience believe that they were being advertised to; with the right balance between entertainment, emotive narratives, and marketing, the brand managed to capture the audiences’ time and attention.

Parle- G has formulated several creative ad campaigns till date. In 2018, Parle launched an ad campaign titled ‘You are my Parle- G’. It was a campaign that the audience would interpret in their own individual ways. To some, the campaign aptly highlighted the fact that we don’t acknowledge everyone around us enough and end up taking them for granted, while for others it evoked emotions of nostalgia. For John Thangaraj, a planning director at an advertising agency, the ad campaign reinforced that the heritage biscuit is a part of our past. He believes that a brand should stay true to what it stands for. Parle does so by actively keeping the audience engaged with ad campaigns that elicit emotional responses from the masses even today, and is one of the factors that has caused the biscuit to remain popular, even while having several competitors. Other ad campaigns like ‘Parle-G Hindustan ki taakat’ placed the brand as the pride of the country and linked it to energy, strength, and intellect. This also attaches to it a certain Indian-ness, and Indian expatriates are quick to associate Parle- G with their motherland and the memories that surround their childhood and upbringing back home.

The perspective of symbolic interactionism is introduced when we assess the way people view the biscuit and use it as a symbol to interact with society. In order to be able to effectively communicate with society, we often use symbols that hold shared cultural meanings (Lule, 2010). According to this perspective, Parle- G does not have preordained meanings by itself; it is the social actors who put meaning to the biscuit brand. The onus on the advertisers to provide a certain product with a shared cultural meaning only to make the product more desirable. The socialising period of Parle-G was a critical stage in the brand’s life, and it was victorious in forming goodwill due to its thoughtful philosophy and great quality. Jamal ve Goode (2000) claims that we consumers choose to consume a certain product owing to the fact that the concerned product possesses symbolic meanings which are in conformity to our own identities, and along with that, we also consider their perceptible benefits. For example, the simplicity that Parle-G symbolises through its simple taste and design is something that the masses believe matches up to their own identities, while they also consider it a food product that intrinsically provides them with energy. We often see that advertisers create advertisements that involve a celebrity hoping that the celebrity's characteristics are transferred to the product. Shaktimaan, a character who was a favourite among kids in the late 1990s and was considered extremely powerful by them, was the brand endorser for Parle- G. This ad campaign - ‘Swad bhare, Shakti bhare’ - was created in order to engage kids and, consequently, their families who eventually associated values of strength and energy to the brand. 

In the previous section, I have highlighted a few campaigns and the way the audience interacts with it. A brand is essentially the expression and transmission of the feelings and thoughts of the consumer regarding the corporation and its products (Özkara, 2014). For Parle- G, we see that their advertisements evoke emotions, and hence, the brand has managed to find for itself a meaning that seems to convey ‘we know and care about our consumers and their requirements’ by making advertisements wherein characters are seen expressing emotions felt by every individual - rich and poor alike. The masses relate to these and attach positive meanings to the brand. We observe a certain unique person- product relationship between Parle-G and its consumers. Parle’s website states that the brand has become synonymous with trust, globally. This characterization of Parle- G serves two purposes. Firstly, it aids in drawing individual consumers closer to the Parent brand and its pre-eminent product which is Parle- G. Secondly, it also further appeals to a greater audience by successfully engendering a sense of shared awareness and understanding of its meaning. These factors proceed to create a relationship between the consumer and the brand, which develops in the minds of its consumers a unique brand personality which consequently, helps the brand stand out. It allows its consumers to extract from this association a certain sense of pleasure and belonging.

Parle- G biscuits are a symbol of consumer citizenship and of an aspirational equality (Baviskar, 2020). The Parle-G biscuit that we know is in several ways associated with a myriad of sides of India - it is a common favourite among an incredibly diverse population. You’ll see it in the formal and informal economy - in big retail chains, kirana shops, street side tea stalls, online stores and it is the only biscuit brand available in a village at the India- Pakistan border that is home to just over a few hundred people. Parle- G has created for itself a place in every store, and in all households. It is essentially a spectacular case of a product that is riding on its own wave of goodwill that the company has worked towards over several decades. The brand loyalty that we see in Parle- G’s case is indeed impressive - and its less affluent consumers are its biggest, most loyal consumers. In the peculiar case of Parle- G, its consumers have been introduced to a whole range of similarly priced biscuits - some with even chocochips in them (Britannia’s Tiger Krunch) - over the years but its loyal consumer base never switches. For households that could afford more expensive biscuits, it is the quality, meaning and warmth that Parle- G communicates that matters more; its price is only a secondary concern.

We can define a strong brand as one that has distinctive features that together hold an unequalled meaning, and these features and their meaning is evaluated by its consumers to create a loyal customer base (Uztug, 1999). Parle-G’s famous yellow packaging and its Parle-G girl are its distinctive features which have remained unchanged for several decades. Parle could no doubt be considered a strong brand. It is a brand that has essentially stood the test of time. Even in times as challenging as the current pandemic situation, the level of comfort that Parle-G, paired with a cup of chai, bestows upon Indians belonging to different socio-economical backgrounds - from migrant workers to middle- class households and from those residing in metropolitan areas to those in the most remotest of villages -  is indeed unparalleled.

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