WhiteTone is a brand of face powder and cream which competes in the fairness segment of the Indian market. The brand is from Vini Cosmetics which is famous for the Fogg brand of deodorant. WhiteTone was launched in 2010 initially as a face powder and later extended into a face cream.
Indian talcum powder market is estimated to be around INR 1300 crore and is shrinking owing to the shift in consumer behaviour towards creams and other cosmetics. WhiteTone tried to differentiate itself in the talcum powder market by positioning itself as a face powder that enhances skin tone.
Despite the slowing popularity of powders, WhiteTone is banking on three benefits to lure the customers to the brand; oil-free look, even skin tone and fairness. The brand extension cream also follows the same promises.
What makes the brand interesting is the recent rebranding of the market leader in the fairness category- Fair & Lovely to Glow&Lovely. The rebranding was very well received by the media and consumer activists as a gesture endorsing skin colour neutrality. However, I feel that WhiteTone gains from such a move from the market leader. The fairness market is worth around INR 5000 crore and Fair&Lovely owns more than 42% share. While the basic positioning of the rebranded Glow&Lovely remains the same, WhiteTone may gain from the sheer brand name which talks about the brand's promise in a way Glow & Lovely may not be able to communicate. It is true that Glow &Lovely caters to a different segment than WhiteTone.
WhiteTone has increased its media presence and in my State- Kerala, the brand is spending heavily on the face powder promotion.
Nu-Shakti is an interesting brand trying to create a category in India. The brand is from the house of Royal DSM which is a Dutch-based company dealing with nutritional products. The company was not in the consumer space and Nu-Shakti is the first brand in this space.
Nu-Shakti comes under the category of nutraceuticals which broadly constitute all products that offer additional nutrition to the consumers. Nutraceuticals are further classified into functional foods and functional beverages. The global market for nutraceuticals is estimated at $250 billion and the Indian market constitutes around 2% which itself is a huge market at $5 billion. The market itself is poised for huge growth because of the lifestyle diseases and convenience factor.
Indian nutraceuticals market is primarily focused on nutritional supplements and drinks. It is where Nu-Shakti becomes interesting. The brand has a range of products that comes under the category of food-fortifying products. Nu-Shakti has two such products - Nu-Shakti Powermix for rice and wheat. The idea is that by adding a prescribed quantity of the product, the rice or wheat becomes rich in nutrients that are otherwise not present or lost in cooking. Along with these two products, the company has also launched a powdered beverage under the sub-brand Mixme.
The idea of fortified products is very relevant because consumers are now more sensitive to the nutritional value of the food and would be willing to invest in a solution that takes care of the nutritional needs which are non-chemical. The advantage of Nu-Shakti Promix is the convenience of the product in that one need to add a prescribed amount to get the desired nutrition ( as promised by the brand).
The brand was test-launched in Tamilnadu with the actress Remyakrishnan as the celebrity endorser and now has launched across the Indian market. In my state Kerala, the brand is promoting its Mixme powdered beverage on television channels.
The brand is priced at Rs 250 for 250 gram which is adequate for 25Kg of rice.
For a consumer, the promise of the brand seems to be interesting. The challenge for the brand is to create the believability of the promise of nutritional fortification and to encourage trial. In the launch phase, the brand tried to do that through celebrity and also through social media influencers. At Rs 250, the consumers need to be thoroughly convinced to create a sustainable sales pipeline. According to reports, the brand has identified the right promotional mix strategy in Tamilnadu and would be trying to replicate the same in the entire market. The launch time is also ripe since consumers are looking for multiple solutions to stay healthy.
Inspired by pandemic, Dettol, the market leader in the antiseptic category launched a liquid laundry sanitiser. The launch is the brand's sort of entry into the laundry care segment. Indian laundry care market is huge with the size of INR 29000 crore and because of the low entry barriers is a tough market with both big brands and unorganized segment vying for a piece of the market. The market is dominated by detergents and slowly other segments are opening up. According to a report, the category of fabric-softeners is worth only INR 115 crore while stain removers are pegged at INR 400 crore.
The Covid pandemic has literally scared the hell out of the customers and marketers were quick to offer solutions that provide relief. Sanitisers were the category that benefited the most. However, after the first wave subsided, the market for sanitisers show a sharp dip but thanks to the second wave, the sanitiser makers can breathe easy.
Dettol has entered into a very nascent category of laundry sanitisers. The brand argues that there is a possibility of virus in the clothes ( very likely) and it's better to kill it while washing using laundry sanitisers. Most of the brands like Lifebuoy, Dabur, Lysol all have their own products in the category.
The issue is that whether the product category is sustainable or not. The case of sanitiser is in front of us. The market went down once the scare is over. Further, this product adds one more step into the laundry process which itself is cumbersome. This one of the reasons why fabric conditioners have a very slow adoption. I have only started using fabric softeners only recently. The problem is with regard to the evidence of performance. While the brand promise that there is virus-killing, what is the evidence, the only evidence is the belief that it may have worked. The same is the case with fabric conditioners/softeners, as a consumer, the only evidence is the fragrance. Also for Covid, it is already known that soaps kill the virus, so naturally, detergents also work against the virus ( I don't know, my assumption). So why bother to buy another product?
To add to this, brands like Comfort has already added the property to its product. It will not be long before the detergents adding this virus/germ killing property in them thus eliminating the need for another product.
Although odds are against this, brands are not leaving anything to chance. Who may have forecasted that there will be a situation when everyone will be using sanitisers and wear masks. So it is a part of marketing agility to experiment with new products/categories and learning from failures.
JSW group belonging to the Sajjan Jindal family which is known for JSW Steel and JSW Cements has forayed into the highly competitive but lucrative Rs 50,000 Crore paint industry. In 2019, the company soft-launched its paints branded as JSW paints in the South and later expanded to a larger national footprint.
Indian paint industry dominated by Asian Paints is lucrative with its sheer size at the same time is extremely competitive and a difficult market to crack. While the organized market is dominated by Asian Paints, Berger, Nerolac, there is a large unorganized market too dominated by the price competition and middlemen ( influencers/decision-makers) like painters and contractors.
Asian Paints is credited with building a brand in this category and breaking the stronghold of painters and contractors in the consumer decision-making process and making the brand choice a consumer prerogative.
When a conglomerate like the JSW group enters the market, everyone will look up to the launch and a possible threat to the long-standing market-leader Asian Paints. The market is large enough to accommodate such a large player at the same time, the existing players are known for defending their market shares.
JSW Paints was launched into the market with a positioning based on colour and price. The key differentiator for JSW paints is the 1808 colour options it provides to the consumer. The choice of the differentiator based on the colours is intriguing since that positioning platform is already owned by Asian Paints. When a challenger brand takes the same positioning as the market leader, there is a risk of consumers failing to associate the colour based positioning with the new entrant. There is a classic example of Nerolac ad featuring Amitabh Bachchan which was focused on colour and later when consumers were asked to recall the brand which Bachchan endorsed, they recalled Asian Paints.
JSW Paints has roped in two celebrities to endorse the brand - Alia Bhatt and Ayushmann Khuranna. The launch ad is well made but the issue of a very close similarity with Asian Paint's positioning lingers.
The brand has also put a number 1808 colour options to give credibility to the range of colours value propositions and this can easily be countered by its competitor and technically it is not a sustainable differentiation. JSW Paints has four brands under its paint portfolio Halo, Aurus, Pixa and Halo Aquaglo. Each brand offers different attributes like Halo is focused on its anti-bacterial property.
Another differentiator for the brand is the One Colour, One Price guarantee by the brand. Usually, brands charge differential pricing for the various colours and in my opinion, JSW paints have identified a good value proposition in this. In a sense, the large number of colour options together with the one price for all colours make a sensible value proposition for this new brand. If promoted this combined value proposition, JSW paints will force the other players to offer one price for all colours in future.
The tagline for the brand is Har Rang, Har Kisi ka which translates to Colours for All. The brand is targeting the young couple ( 25-50 years) and the choice of the brand ambassadors reflects the intent.
I am not sure whether the launch campaign was able to give a proper push to the combined value proposition. Subsequently, more rational campaigns highlighting the combined value propositions will cement a significant position for this brand in the market. If the market accepts this one price formula, it will not be difficult for the competitors to catch up and for JSW Paints, a new hunt for new differentiator will begin.
In my earlier posts on the brand, I had talked about how the Oreo brand is being used as a platform to launch variants by collaborating with other brands in Modolez's portfolio like Dairy Milk. Oreo is now experimenting with yet another launch this time with the 5Star brand. Recently the company launched a new product Cadbury 5 Star Oreo which combines the caramel of 5 Star with Oreo. Mondolez has rightly realized that their products both in the chocolate and biscuit categories are no longer water-tight compartments but the consumers perceive these as a part of the snacking category which is much broader than chocolates and biscuits.
This realization has given rise to the new strategy of cross-pollination ( as mentioned in some business news reports) of brands giving rise to new variants. The advantage of such collaboration is that there are instant awareness and motivation for trial. For snacking category success, a trial is a pre-requisite to success. When two familiar brands come together for a new variant, consumers don't have a reason not to try the variant and the product efficacy then will decide the fate of the new variant. For snacking category, consumers look for variety and novelty. So these experiments are a necessity if one wants to succeed.
Mondolez should be credited for thinking beyond their products. How many brand managers would agree to their iconic brands to be cross-pollinated with other brands within the brand line for creating new variants?
These experiments will encourage marketers to think beyond the products thus eliminating the occurrence of marketing myopia. It is not about whether the new variants succeed or not. This example also resonates with the advice given by Roberto Goizueta to the Coke executives who were rattled by Pepsi Challenge. Goizueta told the executives to focus on what percentage of fluid intake of an individual can Coke capture rather than be worried about the growing share of Pepsi. This changed the mindset of Coke executives encouraging them to rise up to the Pepsi Challenge. In the same manner, Mondolez is trying to gain a larger share of the whole snacking market rather than being narrowly focused on individual brand share. This probably is encouraging the company to launch this type of products.
Astral Pipes one of the leading player in the CPVC pipes category. The company has around 25% market share in this category. The plastic pipe market in India is estimated to be around Rs 21500 Crore. Astral pipes came into existence in 1998. At that time, the market was dominated by GI pipes. After many attempts, Astral pipes were able to pivot the market towards CVPC pipes which now has become a mainstream choice.
It was not an easy task for the company to change the market's preference. It found that although the engineers and supervisors were convinced about the superiority of CVPC pipes, plumbers who were the major influencers were not taken aboard. Since the CVPC pipes were expensive, the company approached this issue on two fronts. At the influencer level, it pursued an outreach program for the plumbers convincing them about the product superiority and at the product level, the company made efforts to reduce the price differential betting on the volume play.
Then the company did the impossible, it ran a very striking branding program. Just like what Asian Paints did to the paint market by branding, Astral tried the same in the pipe category. For that, it chose two platforms- Bollywood and Cricket. Astral in a way behaved like an FMCG company trying to associate with movie stars. And success came with the product placement in the hit Salman Khan movie- Dabangg. The product placement in the movie earned the brand a nickname- Dabangg pipe. Buoyed by the success, the brand went on to associate with many Bollywood blockbusters thus increasing the awareness of the brand. Along with this, Astral pipes roped in Salman Khan to endorse the brand and there was no looking back.
On the cricket front, Astral Pipes associated with IPL by sponsoring teams like Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad which further helped the brand in building awareness. As we all know, one of the fundamental building blocks of brand equity is brand awareness and Astral Pipes were able to create a strong foundation.
In 2020-21, the brand has roped in Ranveer Singh as the brand ambassador. The brand is currently running a very interesting campaign themed " Who thinks about Pipes? "
What is interesting about this campaign is the thought process and the issue that the brand is trying to address. The theme " Who thinks about pipe" rightly captures the issue that Astral pipes try to address. Actually who think about pipes anyway?
For a brand, this question is a make or break for brand. If the consumer doesn't think about pipes, then the purchase will be a commodity purchase with price as the deciding factor. So the current campaign in a way urges the consumer to think about this product category. Further, the brand assures the consumer that as a company, they are constantly thinking about building excellent pipes hence the consumer can trust the brand. With a touch of humour, the ads deliver the message very effectively.
Astral has also explored various promotional options other than ads. In 2017, it launched a much-acclaimed video #Everywomensright promoting the concept of toilets in every house.
The types of above-the-line marketing efforts are rare in a product category like pipes where the energy and investment are more on dealer relationships and margin management. Astral has paved a new path of marketing in this otherwise dull category.
