Dabur Honey - The Sugar Replacement

Dabur Honey, by far the largest player in the Indian branded honey market with over 75% market share, has reinforced the extension of its positioning from simply a 'honey brand' to a 'daily sweetener' : a healthier, more beneficial alternative to sugar. The new ad campaign (view here) features Indian actress Shilpa Shetty promoting honey as being healthier than sugar, with three clear benefits: making you fit, active, and glowing; that is, younger.

It is exciting to see a widely-used consumer product expanding its positioning to include more functional uses, with a view to boosting consumption. The idea of honey as a sugar alternative isn't new, and has only recently been actively pursued by a honey brand. The timing for Dabur couldn't be better. In an age when fitness, health-food and calorie-counting are buzzwords, especially amongst urbanites, people are constantly looking for ways to rationalize their non-nutritious food intake, while not overly compromising on taste. Sugar is widely viewed as an unhealthy additive, yet necessary for taste, hence it ends up being part of every diet. Positioning honey as its replacement is a sure-shot way to catch the fancy of this segment. From the marketer's perspective, it presents a huge captive market that is already consuming sweetener in the form of sugar, so there is no question of creating a need. And honey is anyway widely consumed for its health benefits, in fact, most urban households invariably stock a bottle of honey as a wellness product. Dabur's attempt is a logical extension of the 'sweet' characteristic of honey to the sweetener category.

From the consumer's perspective, it is a welcome and sought-after solution to the burning problem of reducing sugar intake while maintaining taste. And if it comes with additional benefits like making you look younger, as Shilpa coos in the ad, that's even better. In fact, there is every reason for Shilpa's fitness mantra to turn into a mass, new-age trend - a virally spreading lifestyle choice.

However, as always, the devil is in the details. One must note that the brand / ad has consciously stayed away from mentioning anything related to calories. That's because honey is not a reduced-calorie replacement for sugar, as opposed to artificial sweeteners like Sugar-Free. In fact, honey is composed of 82% sugars! But,being rich and naturally-occurring, and enjoying ancestral branding as a life-enhancing nectar, these facts are largely ignored by Indian consumers. Dabur has shrewdly glossed over this little detail with the perceived transformational benefits of the product.

Still, it shouldn't stand in the way of the brand gate-crashing its way into the sugar cabinet. With a 75% market share already, things can only get sweeter for the brand.