The DS Group was founded in 1929 in Delhi, India and has grown to operate in various sectors such as food and beverage, hospitality, agriculture, tobacco, and packaging. Some of its well-known brands include Catch spices, Pass Pass mouth fresheners, and Rajnigandha Pan Masala. The group's Pulse candy was a hugely successful product due to its affordable price of 1 rupee, wide availability, colorful wrappers, and extensive flavor testing. The candy gained popularity through word of mouth advertising without any formal marketing spends. Strong distribution through the group's existing networks helped the candy achieve sales of over 100 crore rupees.

2. About DS Group
• Founded in 1929, the Dharampal
Satyapal group is involved in a
variety of sectors likes Food
Beverage, hospitality, agro
forestry, tobacco, and packaging
and mouth fresheners. Under its
umbrella, it manufactures Catch
spices, Pass Pass mouth
freshner, Rajnigandha Pan
Masala as well as Ksheer dairy
products, including milk, ghee
and dahi. In its confectionary
sector, it manufacturers Pass
Pass Chingles and Pass Pass
Pulse.

3. History of the company
• In the early 20th century, when trade and commerce had
not witnessed the advent of brands and marketing warfare
in India, Shri Dharampal ji - the founder of DS Group, set
up a small perfumery shop in Chandni Chowk, Delhi in the
year 1929. The urge to create a business around
consumer tastes and preferences led Dharampal ji to
innovate quality products. His sense revolutionized the
market of chewing tobacco and the shop in Chandni
Chowk became renowned not only in Delhi but even
amongst the gourmet of tobacco in other parts of India
and the world.

4. • Highly innovative and unprecedentedly popular, paved
the way for a host of premium products like and
, which have established their leadership in their own
category and created new markets in its wake. With the spirit of
innovation and promise of quality driving the Company , forays
were made in to new markets with defining standards being
established across sectors. Whether it was the ‘ ’ range of
products in F&B or and in the Mouth
Fresheners category, the DS Group brand name eventually
became synonymous with excellence and set new benchmarks
for others to follow.

5. • Conquering New Territories
Continuing its pursuit, the Group moved in to the Hospitality
sector with extensive five star properties in the larger cities;
and boutique and heritage properties at tourist destinations.
This expansion eventually saw the Group successfully enter
the Packaging, Agro Forestry, Confectionery, Dairy, Cement
and Power sectors as well.
Over nine glorious decades the DS Group has grown from
strength to strength. With a constant focus on quality and
customer satisfaction, we are excited for the future and look
forward to many more years of excellence and innovation

6. Some well known products by the
company

8. Why Pulse Candy was a huge success?

9. • 1 rupees salty sweet game
• Easy availability
• Unique colored wrapper
• Extensive research on the flavor

10. Success Story
• In low price high volume, there is always a need of developing
a sale story for the salesman, to enable them to place the
product at the outlet, and for the retailer to push the product
trial to the customers.
• Once the trials made started gaining traction, the product
strength took it forward. Word of mouth started catching up as
most people started referring the candies to their friends and
colleagues. At some places it became a mouth freshener of
sort after lunch at others it was a regular get together Candy
among friends in a college class. The word had set in.

11. • The awesome part of its success story is that Pulse has hardly
spent a single penny on any marketing. The whole lift in demand
is due to word of mouth publicity. Demand is much more than
the supply and currently the company is able to meet only 60-
70% of the demand.
• With the rising demand of Pulse it started selling at a premium, it had to
be supported well through the distribution. More than 80% market
coverage, frequent refillment, and overall tight distribution norms helped
Pulse be available ate every nook and corner of the city. Launch in
Rajasthan and Gujarat was followed up by launch in UP & Delhi. At 2015
end, a new Guava flavor of Pulse candy was launched in the market. The
company crossed 100 Crore mark in January this year which was set to
be achieved by the end of March.

13. • Though the flavour has a pan-India appeal, the company didn’t launch
with a splash. It identified that the taste is closer to the Gujarati and
Rajasthani palate and introduced Pulse in those markets first. The
response was unprecedented. The candy then quickly expanded its
presence across the country and, currently, most of the demand emerges
from markets like Maharashtra, Telangana, Rajasthan, UP and Delhi.
• For any candy brand,building distribution in the mom-and-pop trade, in
kiranas and other small corner stores, by making jars of 50 and 100
pieces available is critical for success as that is where the consumption
is. The group also leveraged its robust distribution network thanks to their
existing portfolio of brands like Baba Elaichi, Rajnigandha and Pass
Pass. Currently, they have 8.5 lakh outlets pan-India and over 2,500
distributors for Pulse.

14. SWOT Analysis

15. Conclusions