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Dalda has been a big brand in india from past 7 decades.Dalda was a brand of vanaspati ‘ghee’.A vanaspati is basically mixture of vegetable oils that have been converted to solid form by the addition of hydrogen.
Dalda was basically used as a cheaper subsitute to the original ghee(clarified butter) which is inseparable from our Indian cuisine.People who couldn’t afford ghee used dalda instead. In fact Dalda became synonymous with vanaspati.Dalda meant vanaspati and vanaspati meant dalda.

I even heard that people used to refer any general cheaper substitute as Dalda.e.g.any cheaper brand for any product would loosely be referred to as Dalda.On the pack ‘VEGETABLE GHEE’ was written always as it was positioned as a subsitute to ghee.

You can read more about Dalda on wiki.

Over time as Indians became more health conscious,dalda and ghee were seen less on the cuisine.More healthy and edible cooking oils like groundnut,mustard, rice bran,soyabean and even olive came into picture. For more details on cooking oils you can refer to this article on rediff.It kept on losing market share to these new categories.Dalda also came up with its healthier version.It was called Dalda Activ but it didn’t taste much success in market.

in 2003 a company called Bunge bought Dalda from HUL.In 2004, it’s market share in vanaspati had come down to 16% and the market kept shrinking. To grow Bunge needed to enter the cooking oil market with an ‘oil’ and not a ‘fat’ (vanaspati). Bunge extended the Dalda brand into oils. It launched oils like; Sunflower, Mustard, Groundnut, Soyabean, Gingelly (Til). They aimed at market leadership in two years.Did that happen ?

No

The growth Bunge envisaged for Dalda never happened. It has grown from 350cr in 2003 to 550cr in 200 (a decent growth of 8-10%, mainly because the industry also grew by the same percentage). But the market share never moved up. Today Dalda has a 2% market share in oils and fats in India.

Basically Dalda never was able to come out of its old cheap ghee substitute image.

But few days back i heard about a relaunch of DALDA.

A new logo,a new look,a new tagline,a new positioning.

It has a new tagline ‘husband’s choice‘.

They are launching a range of new products.To make housewives see Dalda as a healthy oil Bunge has planned a spend of 22 crores over the next two years. They are planning TV commercials, FM spots and retail activation to spread their message. Two more variants (Rice Bran Oil & Coconut Oil) are also in pipeline.

I am a bit surprised by the tagline.The consumer study by Shining Emotional Surplus and Bunge’s marketing team revealed a particular worry for most housewives — health of the husband who is overworked, stressed and often eats outside.This means that housewife will chose this brand because its good for her husband’s health but then it should have been ‘Healthy choice for My Husband‘ or something similar as they are targeting housewives.

Nevertheless Dalda is a heritage brand marred by a poor brand image which needed something like this to revive itself.

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