Friday, August 12, 2016

Brand Ramdev

My cousin who operates Kirana (Grocery) Shop in a small decrepit town in the South of Punjab, has some wonderful business titbits to share on every visit and some of those can be learnt while toiling in those environments than in Business books or the business mumbo-jumbo. He always says, Marke chalaane bahut mushkil hai (it’s so difficult to establish brands). And then he demonstrates the case of Anchor Toothpaste, till the time, they were bombarding the primetime on Television with the advertisements and offering dealers/distributors/retailers healthy margins, they posed a major challenge to the FMCG MNCs like Close-UP, Colgate and Pepsodent but as soon as they put a dent in their advertising revenue, they had to make an exit from the market through the emergency shaft.

Typically for MNCs to deliver a successful product in the market needs to stay in market for more than 15 years. Lux is more than 70 years old brand. HUL and P&G, spend more than 10% of their budget on Advertisment and Marketing in spite of their huge line of products and its legacy. It is due to bulk buying of advertisement slots that they can keep the budget around 12%, otherwise it may shoot to over 15%, taking their whole business proposition for the toss.

But then comes our own Swadeshi brand, Patanjali, who is making FMCG MNCs sweat in their own house. Management Consultants, Strategists and Brand Consultants have found the wave of Baba Ramdev equally challenging to put in words or to ascribe a particular theory to it. Or like the FB meme says, You don’t need half naked women to sell products, half naked men can do it better. It’s just nobody tried earlier.

Take the case of shopkeeper near my house in Amritsar and there is only one shop in our area and around (colony spread over 340 acres) and he is super critical of Baba Ramdev. So I asked him, does he have something personal against Baba Ramdev? He replied, woh dhongi hai (he is a crook and liar), I replied, which Baba is not and if they will not be dhongi, they will be like us.

But then he also started selling Patanjali products at his shop. So I asked, now the Baba is straight as an arrow. He said, every customer comes and asks for his products. I belong to my customers. If customers start going to other shops, then who will come to my shop. It is simple business strategy, nothing to do with my thought process of Ramdev. So I said, wait for it, it will. He asked, how come? I replied, Baba is offering competitive margins than the MNCs against whom he is up and against.

Couple of months down the line, the hoarding of the shop changed from Coca-Cola board to Patanjali board. I asked, are you ditching other products and making it exclusive Patanjali shop. He answered, the speed with which he is expanding his product profile and lineage and the way with which customers are adopting his products, it seems difficult for others to find more space in my shop. Baba is occupying more and more shelf space. The best part, the demand is always exceeding the supply. He explained, if I am keeping twenty products of Patanjali in my shop, at no time there are more than 18 available as two have always gone out of stock and as soon as the stock comes, something else goes missing. Worst part, they are not servicing us at shops, we are standing in queue at the distributors’ shop to get products for our shops.

Is it a recipe for disaster or an astounding success is something which is debatable? He then gives example of housewife or better maid, if a maid has used Patanjali Dish Wash Bar, she recommends it to all the other households she visits. It is based on the chemicals from which raakh was obtained. Patanjali’s soap is of Raakh colour, people are more connected with it and it has the best quality in the market. People have forgotten about nimbu (lemon) based VIM. He suggested, take a bath with the Patanjali Multani Mitti (Mud) Soap, nobody can feel as refreshed after bath from their soap than with any liquid expensive soaps available in market.

We know Baba is promoting his products as swadeshi and pure and herbal (ayurvedic) and luring the people especially when our FMCG market is over-possessed with firangi brands (MNCs control the FMCG space). But to all the detractors who feel and think, Patanjali is an overnight brand. Baba Ramdev is Patanjali and he has worked for more than a decade to make his name a synonym of YOGA and is now reaping the benefits of the same. But at the same time, another question pops up, why and how MAGGI (Noodles, In India, maggi is referred to as Noodle) is herbal or ayurvedic to be marketed and branded by Patanjali? But then the Patanjali has crossed the hurdle long back and made it itself a comprehensive FMCG company, which started with making some of the traditional Indian medicines and then products and now they will be offering the entire range of Hindustan Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser and not to mention Britannia, Dabur and Amul.

No wonder, Patanjali’s revenue jumped from Rs. 1588 Crores in FY ‘15 to Rs. 3267 Crores in FY ‘16 with the target of Rs. 10,000 Crores for the current FY ’17. Is the heightened activity in Patanjali due to its support to Mr Modi’s campaign? I mean, if RSS endorses their products within their circles, Patanjali does not even require the massive Indian role in consumption of products. Whether or not political angle is entrenched in the Patanjali can be questioned to length? But the whole success story of Patanjali is astounding like I mentioned the trading community, who are queuing up, which really the strength and success of the Brand.

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman & creative director of Ogilvy South Asia, and the genius adman sums it up for us and said, feels marketers have a lot to learn from Ramdev. “He is an all-rounder who is battling, bowling and fielding at the same time. Baba Ramdev is a great proponent of a direct marketing FMCG company, and is one step ahead of the likes of the Amways and Avons of the world.” 

But ultimately the popularity of the Baba Ramdev can be gauged from the fact that as soon as India Today gave a preview of the cover story with Baba Ramdev’s image on it, Twitterati went berserk.










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