Most people love chocolate. In fact, the chocolate confectionery market generated revenues worth $0.99 trillion worldwide in 2021 and, according to Statista’s Digital Market Outlook, these numbers are expected to grow to $1.33 trillion in the coming years. Another segment in the category that has shown steady growth is biscuits, amounting to $110.7 billion in 2021, according to a report by IMARC Group, and expected to increase to $151.7 billion by 2027.

In Pakistan too, the chocolate and biscuit segments are rapidly growing within the confectionery category. Case in point: Candyland’s recent launch of Bisca, its new chocolate-biscuit product. Launched in September 2022, Candyland are aiming to further extend their portfolio with Bisca.

According to Zaid Habib, Head of Marketing, Candyland, “biscuits and chocolate are the fastest growing segments in confectionery and by introducing Bisca, we are not only attracting consumers from the biscuit segment, we are making sure we are growing our consumer base in the chocolate segment.”

Internationally, several brands make chocolate combined with wafers/biscuits (Twix, KitKat and Perk). Habib says this combination was missing from Candyland’s portfolio and although international brands are not Bisca’s direct competitors, there are few Pakistani brands that produce this combination in the form of “small-scale mushroom brands available at khokas and kiryanas.”

When asked which target audience Bisca was catering to, Ahsan Bhutto, Senior Brand Manager, Bisca, elaborates that “chocolate consumers are generally Gen Z and young adults, whereas biscuit consumers are older adults. By combining chocolate and biscuits, we are broadening our audience. With Bisca, we are offering both segments the best of both worlds – hence the tagline ‘Have it All’.”

Bisca was launched in two phases. First, through a soft launch in March 2022, when the brand’s marketing team conducted on-ground research in schools and universities to gauge consumer acceptance in terms of price (it costs Rs 20) and taste. The second phase and the official launch took place in September 2022.

The six-month gap between the soft and the official launches was used as a fine tuning phase to ensure there were no formulation issues with Bisca’s composition, before rolling out the advertising campaign.

“Chocolate is a technical product from a recipe point of view. We wanted to ensure there were no melting issues while perfecting the balance of the flavour,” explains Habib.

The ad campaign kick-started with a product-centric TVC, focusing on the composition and the packaging of product and ran during the Asia Cup 2022. The campaign also ran on digital and social media and is currently running on the radio and on billboards in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad. Habib adds that “there was a lot of hype surrounding the Asia Cup this year, especially because it took place after a while. We grabbed the opportunity to introduce to Bisca on a nationwide level.” Bisca released a second campaign on October 19 with a more thematic approach.

The campaigns and the packaging were executed by IAL Saatchi & Saatchi. Commenting on the packaging, Bhutto says that after several options were presented by IAL, the approved versions were shown to a number of schools. “We showed mock dummies of the design to the kids and they chose the one that appealed to them the most.”

Although Candyland has invested time and effort on marketing of their new product, they are also ensuring their other product ranges remain top-of-mind with consumers, via OOH and social media marketing. Last year they heavily advertised their chocolates Now and Sonnet, and their Butterscotch candy. This year they are focusing on Paradise chocolate, especially since the packaging has been tweaked and it is “the second most popular product in Candyland’s portfolio,” according to Habib.

Further down the line, Candyland plans to launch more products and revamp/re-introduce the existing ones for which, says Habib “you will have to stay tuned.”