Marketing and Selling Strategy of Amul

Amul is the largest co-operative movement in India and as the country's largest food company, is the market leader in butter, whole milk, cheese, ice cream, dairy whitener, condensed milk, saturated fats and long life milk.

Amul follows a unique business model, which aims at providing 'value for money' products to its consumers, while protecting the interests of the milk-producing farmers who are its suppliers as well as its owners. In butter, cheese and saturated fats, Amul has remained the undisputed market leader since its inception in 1955, by offering quality products at competitive prices. In other categories, Amul has nullified its late mover disadvantage through aggressive pricing, better quality, innovative promotion, and superior distribution.

The cooperative model pioneered by Amul - is known as the "Anand pattern" cooperative system. It was a three-tier structure that comprised village societies, district level dairy unions and a state level federation.

Each tier was economically independent of the others and comprised representatives elected from the tier below it. The organizations at each level were governed by their own bylaws, and were managed by democratically elected boards.

The marketing strategy of new offerings of Amul is to primarily create a brand so as to enable itself to create a monopolistic or oligopolistic situation in a market segment which is essentially homogenous and thus create brand loyalty. The consumers of Amul exhibit variety seeking behavior. Amul ensures push strategy in order to ensure availability of the product. The aim of the company is to provide value for money to its customers but never compromise on its product quality.

One of the most conservative FMCG entities, GCMMF spends a mere 1% of its turnover on promotions. GCMMF has written and re-written rules of the