RISING OF AN AYURVEDA BRAND FROM KERALA - INDULEKHA

INTRODUCTION

Indian hair care market is estimated at around INR 152 billion in 2013-14.  The hair oil segment, valued at around INR 81 billion, accounts for around 53% of the total hair care market in 2013-14. Hair oil market in India is noted for a high market penetration, estimated at around 90% with CAGR 18%

Hair oil is perceived to provide benefits of nourishment, strengthening hair, faster and better growth and reducing hair fall. Some consumers perceive that massaging of hair oil has cooling impact on the head. Cosmetically, hair-oil is perceived to aid hair styling, as hair remains straight, soft and shining after applying oil. There are four main categories of hair-oils in India.

Types of Hair oil

Coconut oils: it has the highest market share among all other categories. It is very popular in the south. Amla hair oils: The heavy amla hair oil market is primarily an urban driven market and tends to be geographically concentrated in the northern parts of the country. Light hair oils: it has significant growth in recent years as consumers opt for lighter, more modern hair oil products. Cooling oils: It is meant for cooling the scalp during the harsh summer months. The ingredients in the cooling oils cause immediate relief by cooling the scalp.

Kerala have strong ayurvedic background and it strongly routed in the regimes of Keralites. Most of the Keralites use hair oil as a part of their hair care regimes. This fact made Kerala a potential market for hair oil brands especially ayurvedic and herbal category. Mosons group based at north Kerala were introduced their first hair care product Indulekha gold hair care herbal oil in 2008 - 09. Previously they were manufacturer and supplier of coconut oil extractions. Their sales were limited only to local region of north Kerala called Kannur.

In the initial stage, as like all other product, Indulekha was struggled to get an entry into the market. Market was already dominated by regional brands as well as some national brands. The entry barriers for Indulekha were lack of marketing strategy, more precisely lack of strong distribution channel, sales force and communication strategy.

The new brand was trying to get a premium position in Ayurveda space. In Ayurveda category there were many brands, branded as well as non-branded hair oil with different price range varies from Rs.50 – Rs.200 whereas Indulekha was priced at huge premium of Rs 430/-

Mosons group was focused on improving their marketing strategy and over a period of time with effective customer communication they could achieve better market share. All such efforts grown their brand to compete with other top hair oil brands in India.

 REORGANIZING THE BUSINESS

In the end of 2009, founder has decided to revamp the entire sales as well as distribution structure and marketing. He has appointed Janatha medical distributor as a super stockiest with an agreement that they should able to distribute the product across Kerala. Meanwhile Mosons can recruit a veteran sales professional for heading the sales. This was helped Monson to kick start the sales.

Along with revamping sales and distribution, founder was succeeded to get onboard a creative communication agency Fertile-isle for spearheading marketing campaign. Fertile-isle has rich history of creating strong Ayurveda brands in Kerala. They have full-fledged creative as well as media team to support all sort of marketing functions.

FOCUSING SALES AND DISTRIBUTION

First and foremost task of sales team under the sales head was to place the product across Kerala. Sales and distribution team has worked very hard to get the product placed at each store – medical stores, general stores, super markets & retail chains. Their placement strategy was to make it available in all medical stores across Kerala. Off takes were fuelled with print campaign in newspapers. During the product placement, protest from the retailers was considerably less than the other brands. It is because of two reasons, (i) the pricing strategy - They have maintained the product price at Rs 430/- while competition had a price band in the range of Rs 100 – Rs 150/- This product pricing could offer better margin to the sellers than the other products in the hair care oil category. (ii) News paper ads – consecutive print ads built a positive vibe among the trade channels. As a result, Indulekha owned a position of sales man preferred brand to push the shelf off to earn more profit. All these effort resulted a better product placement within a short period of a time

Along with the reengineering the sales strategy, set of customer communication has been planned under the leadership of the communication agency fertile-isle. They were focused on product communication rather than brand communication. Product communication was focused on immediate relief on customer hair problems. Also all these communications were tried to convey the superior quality of the products. At the initial stage customer communication has captured a sentence as “Clean your hands with soap after applying Indulekha oil otherwise hair will grow in your palm.” Even though it has received a mix of responses from the market but triggered product trials among the customers. It was widely noted and Indulekha became known in the market.

At the initial stages all communication campaign was testimonial in nature where all SEC of customers were targeted in different manner. Campaigns were carried more in the print media regularly on all weekend.

  

Indulekha print ads

 

All leading news papers Malayala manorama, Mathrubhoomi, Deshabhimani & Mangalam carried promotional ads. Also they have got space regularly in leading magazines Vanitha, Grahalakshmi, Mangalam, Manorama, Arogyam & Arogyamasika.

Another USP was “Cold process technology“, which was new in the market, has found fruitful result in customers. By cold process technology it was believed to be not losing any medicinal properties of its ingredients while others using heat processing technology by which, obviously, reduce the medicinal effects of ingredients while boiling the coconut oil during the production.

STEERING THE GROWTH PHASE – DEVELOPING THE BRAND

Early period of 2012, Indulekha has grown much far better than its competitors. Most of the marketing campaigns were successful. As in the initial stage, they continued the commercials with testimonial approach where products were endorsed by mini screen actors/actresses from all leading serials. This approach has helped the product to get into the space of Kerala customers more easily. As a result of success in Kerala market, company has targeted Middle East countries where among the Indian population majorities are from Kerala. Promotional campaigns in the Malayalam channels have given spill over in Arabian countries. As a result, exports of Indulekha products have grown many folds.

At the end of 2012, Indulekha dominated the Kerala market with leading market share among the other players. To be there strongly in the ayurvedic position they have launched Indulekha Bringha hair oil where “Bringha” represents an herb called Bringaraja, which is a vital supplement for hair care. There after the products where promoted more aggressively in all the markets. Indulekha commercial were aired on all media channels with high frequency. Media planning were done highly professional. Branding opportunity of all leading programs has been bagged. Many events with telecast value have been sponsored by the brand through leading general entertainment channels.

As and when Indhulekha was focusing above the line activities (ATL), they were also focused on below the line activities (BTL). To maintain the brand recall, company had utilized the out of home (OOH) media extensively. For eg: Large hoardings regularly updated with TV commercials, retail boards etc. carried their communication stretched at the ground more effectively in such way that It could create high brand recall among the customers.

For example: when they aired testimonial commercial characterized by barber, most of the barbershops were branded with Indulekha hair oil. Also they could start selling hair oil through barbershop and launched post hair cut massage with Indulekha bringa oil – known as Indulekha massage.

Mean while management was tried with new packing, which has given better mileage in product identification and helped to create more perseverance among customers towards effective ayurvedic hair oil. These entire brand-building efforts helped Indulekha to become most successful brand in Kerala.

NEW PRODUCT LAUNCHES – BRAND EXTENSION

After the success of Indulekha bringa hair care oil, 2013 has witnessed the launch of more products from Mosons. They have introduced another hair oil under the same brand, called Vayodha, white soap, coconut milk shampoo, fairness face pack, fairness cream. Apart from white soap, in joint collaboration with Kerala soaps, a Kerala state government owned company; they have launched other soap variance also.

Indulekha white soap was launched in 2013 and the brand was endorsed by superstar Bharat Mammootty. It was a niche product competing with other brands like dove, lux, Yardley. Their strong marketing skill made the product successful in the market.

They followed the same media strategy of hair oil for white soap but campaign were treated highly premium in such a way to impact on niche market especially upper middle class customers. As a part of launching Indulekha white soap they bought space and air time from all leading publications as well as TV channels. In the weekend, Sunday, print and TV channels have been scheduled with white soap ads. All most all airtime during the programs were used for commercials. Channels were bombarded with white soap commercial extensively to hit the audience repeatedly.  This media strategy was unique in the industry.

GOING BEYOND KERALA MARKET

As we have seen, after successful in Kerala market, management has decided to go beyond Kerala. They considered Indulekha bringa to launch in Tamil Nadu. Marketing strategy was as similar to that in Kerala. Similarly it was launched in Karnataka also. It was successful on all these places.

Company was expanding their market across India; they were keen on focusing the product. Management has brainstormed over possible innovations for a product differentiator and in 2014 they have introduced selfie comb bottle. Bottle has a patented comb shaped cap which has been popular since its launch, with sales rising at a 30% pace since then. The company had drawn up plans for expansion to other Indian cities when it when it caught HUL's attention.

                                 

Product innovation, better marketing Indulekha brand was successful under the flagship product Indulekha bringa hair care oil. Management approach helped the Kerala brand to emerge as a national brand with sales turnover of Rs.120 Cr/Yr. In 2015 the brand Indulekha has been taken over by HUL with a transaction summing of 500Cr. Success journey of Indulekha is leaving some questions to the other veteran players in Kerala ayurvedic industry. Within a short span on time, 6 years, it has become a leading hair oil brand in India. Why other brand cannot achieve it, even not much better in Kerala?