I was sitting atop a truck when I took this shot. Painting houses, kiosks and walls is the new form of advertising in town these days. And that is Indomie on someone’s house right there.

Who Needs to Care About Indomie ….?

Well, you should.

Indomie is a household name for noodles in Ghana now. And you should care because I think it is interesting how Indomie became a household name.

If you are asking “how?” then read on…..

Doris, my girlfriend, says Indomie came around circa 2005. ( And if you are asking why you should care about what Doris says . Well you need to. She is good with dates. She most probably won’t remember the face of a classmate in her elementary school , 19years ago, but she would remember her name and her date of birth. Yes Doris knows the birth date of every single person she knows.

SO. Indomie was introduced in Ghana in 2005, ( I will check the date and update this later — for now just trust Doris). It wasn’t popular. In fact no one cared about Indomie. Indomie’s basic marketing idea was to sell the product to children. And they were at it unsuccessfully for many years. But then something happened…..

Five years down the line …..

Young adults - college students started playing with the noodle idea. They started eating it - and trying out different things. One good thing about Indomie was giving people the choice to make their own fast food. Indomie was simple to cook and it came with some flavouring. The flavouring wasn’t that good. It sucked. But these young adults were at their noodle game until they stumbled on a new recipe. A new way of preparing a sumptuous Indomie. Yes a new way. A new colorful way of preparing Indomie. And in that miniature world Indomie became popular. It was a simple great looking meal. And tasty too.

These students came home and started preparing it . And then one person decided to start an Indomie fastfood joint cooking Indomie in this new style. And before any could say “Ananse” the Indomie fastfood joint was multiplying. I guess by now you know what this meant in terms of the sales…

Indomie didn’t actually taste as great as the tagline says - until that miniature world decided to make it so.

Your customers will eventually decide the use of your product - they eventually define it for you. How you respond is not to release new assortments of indomie - but rather other ways to make noodles that really taste great. You introduce new recipes - and then go to these miniature worlds where everything started - and ask them: “what do you think about this recipe - is it something you would love to learn to cook for your friends?”

The Indomie guys still haven’t figured this out. They are still trying to sell to children. They haven’t realised that the need to take advantage of the young adult market. It’s year 2013 and I can see Indomie fading out. Because those young adults are looking for something fresh to experiment with it.

Maybe another brand of noodles might surface and succeed where Indomie has failed. Or Indomie will learn their lesson too late.