10 Nov, 2010, 03.

45AM IST, Moinak Mitra,ET Bureau

Dabur trying to make healthcare brands

'fun' & 'tasty'
KK Rajesh, IIM-Calcutta alumni and former business head of Hindustan Levers Limited
Network, is obsessed with scalene triangles. He cant get over those irregular lines
forming different angles at three corners making up for taste, fun and health.
As executive vice president-marketing of Dabur India, Rajesh's world revolves around
these three parameters. The mandate is clear - make healthcare fun and tasty.
Dabur has identified healthcare as the new focus area as per a vision plan for the period
2010 to 2014, in which the company wants to double the turnover and profits to achieve a
topline of Rs 7,000 crore and a bottomline of Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the
period....healthcare would be a key part in this growth strategy and the company plans to
emerge as the market leader in the consumer healthcare space, says Sunil Duggal, CEO
of
Dabur
India.
Healthcare alone accounts for more than Rs 1,000 crore in turnover for the Rs 3,500crore Dabur India, with just about 80-odd SKUs, 10% of its total SKUs. Yet, healthcare
sits as the sweet spot that is driving promoters and professionals to re-engineer their
brands in this space from the immunity booster Dabur Chyavanprash to the digestive
Hajmola,
from
Dabur
Honey
to
Red
Toothpaste.
In line with management-speak, about 3% of the turnover goes into R&D and consumer
research each year and over the last couple of years, this has enabled the company to
launch approximately 30 products, including variants, every year in the healthcare space.
For starters, change in the Rs 130-crore Hajmola brand was set in motion about four
years back when the company decided to move from a pure-play medicinal (digestive)
USP to a therapeutic (tasty and feel-good) proposition. Along with the traditional
digestive property, we wanted Hajmola to enhance the value of every meal, says Rajeev
A John, senior marketing manager, entrusted with the Hajmola portfolio. Marketers at
Dabur were aware that digestion catered to the 25-30 age-group and beyond. The
challenge really was to bring down that bracket. In the late-80s, Hajmola's foray into
candies was fetching rich dividends as half the turnover came from them.
Now to add the taste and fun dimension, Dabur launched a slew of initiatives. We've
already touched 4 lakh consumers in two years by tying up with the Dabbawallas of
Mumbai who provide free Hajmola sachets with every tiffin to their clients, points out
Rajesh.

This was also a great way to sample new variants, like pudina (mint) and kaccha aam
(raw mango). Other points of sale activation during sampling included dhabas (highway
eateries) and swanky QSRs, like Nirula's, where one sachet of Hajmola was given with
every bill cut for two years in a row. In the same vein, collaboration with
Indian Railways and FM radio stations countrywide to rope in prospects, wove in the
fun element. For the Rs 250-crore Dabur Chyavanprash franchise (65% of the organised
market for Chyavanprash), 2008 was a watershed year. Prior to that, legislation didn't
allow any alterations to Chyavanprash, which changed through a notification in 2008.
And as a first mover, Dabur has just launched two variants orange and mango in
this tried traditional turf. We also wanted to shift the USP of Chyavanprash as an
immunity-builder against cold and cough during winters to other seasons, claims Rajesh.
So the Dabur team extended the brand offering for the monsoons with an ad featuring
Indian
cricket
skipper
MS
Dhoni.
Result: The brand has witnessed 50% growth over the last six months. It is also
abundantly clear that the company wants to take on other FMCG brands in the health
drinks market. We believe Chyavanprash is more fully loaded than malted drinks, says
Rajesh, clearly signalling a challenge to brands such as Horlicks and Bournvita.
Any product that solves the dichotomy of health and taste would be a blockbuster. We're
moving from tested health to taste, which is verifiable, observes Praveen Jaipuriar,
deputy GM - marketing, Dabur India. Ditto for Dabur Honey.
About two decades ago, when Dabur launched its honey franchise, purity was the sole
USP. We realised consumption of honey in India was only based on religious or
medicinal purposes and so we identified a need and drove consumption based on food
usage, elaborates Jaipuriar. Subsequently, Dabur came out with a slew of ads with honey
as bread spreads and on parathas. Down the line, it even elevated honey on to the health
platform with a stentorian Amitabh Bachchan rooting for Dabur Honey as a sugar
substitute.
Today, no quarter is less than 20% of sales (Rs 170 crore) for Dabur Honey. Owing to
food usage, the brand has also successfully moved away from its seasonal bias. It has also
enabled the brand to cash in on the pull in modern trade. So whenever shelves of fruits or
cornflakes approach the shop floor, Dabur Honey carefully sits alongside, as a
complement. The brand punchline is fitness from the healthy alternative.
This enabled us to execute the entire campaign across 150 organised retail stores,
wherein whenever a consumer entered the store, a concave mirror was placed (for the
leaner look) at the entrance with reminders of Dabur Honey leading to the primary shelf,
elaborates George Angelo, executive vice president - sales, Dabur India.
As for Dabur Red Toothpaste (known in company circles as RTP), the brand halo seems
to shine ever so brightly with its proven track record. Launched in 2003, it has already
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notched up Rs 150 crore in revenues. Are there variants in the offing? Maybe not. It is
complete in terms of variants and I don't see fragmenting the benefits of RTP but I do see
different formats of packaging or form or even product delivery, like gels, says Rajesh.
Similar changes in packaging and churning out more variants across other brands in
healthcare, like Dabur Glucose, Babool and Meswak toothpaste brands, has made
healthcare the single largest contributor to the group's revenues. The new look and feel of
the Dabur healthcare portfolio is courtesy a Sydney-based boutique design firm, Zlata,
which beat several of the best in India to bag the business.
Their understanding of ayurveda was refreshing and a little bit more than what the
Indian designers had on offer, says Rajesh. That little bit more has translated into some
very zany packs for Chyavanprash, Hajmola and their variants.
As Amit Burman, vice chairman of Dabur India puts it, We feel OTC healthcare will be
our new growth engine in the next few years and are in the process of digging into our
huge ethical portfolio right now to identify products that can be tailored, branded and
packaged in an OTC format. Bottomline, with the troika of health, taste and fun, brand
promise at Dabur is just coming off the beaten path.