Pitch CMO Summit 2011: ITC – The soap opera

In 2008, ITC entered the old and cluttered personal care segment with a range of shampoo and soap under the brand names Vivel and Fiama di Wills.

The Challenge
While the categories that ITC had entered were not growing at a very fast pace, being the 120th or the 200th brand in the categories also did not help matters. “In an environment of decades old brands how do we make a mark, how do we get noticed, how do we get accepted, how do we make the maximum impact?” These were some of the questions plaguing the company at the time of the launch.

The Strategy
ITC has its own set of concepts, principles and practices, which the company has built on its understanding of the science and art of the consumer traits but modified contextually. These have been applied during the early days of the personal care business.

As per Kaul, “Winning in the marketplace is all about contextual interpretation of ideas. You have to reinterpret yourself. You can be pure or you can be contextually relevant and that is what makes for the biggest success.”
ITC believes that over the years the concepts of above the line and below the line have merged. It is through the line communication for the company’s personal care products based on the belief that ITC does not sell products. Consumers need to buy these brands, as they need to be engaged and associated with these brands and attachment leads to loyalty so that is the basic premise on which ITC works. For Kaul, one of the most important strategies is by aligning oneself with the needs of the consumer and the customer i.e. creating pull for the brand and creating a push from the trade to the consumer.

Another important principle that the company follows is to be able to master the short term drivers of growth. Growth needs to be in a manner that it does not impair the long term equity of the brand.

Sandeep Kaul, Chief Executive, Personal Care, ITC

The implementation
According to Kaul, extensive utilisation of research, tracking and analytics play a key role in the success of brands. He stressed the importance of it by revealing the fact that ITC spends ten percent of its advertising budget on research and consumer tracking. Measurement of key matrix like behavioral loyalty, attitudinal attachment, sense of community and active engagements are very effective in planning marketing activities. The company also makes it mandatory for all to spend time at consumer’s home and not just depend on research agencies coming in with presentations. To observe and understand how the product and the brand interface when the consumers are at it and what role does the product play in consumer’s life was also an important aspect.

ITC has managed to do some point of purchase innovations also in terms of product, packaging and the distribution together. When ITC launched Vivel Acive Fair, the  sachet came pre-packed with the POP so this is what people hung and this brought in phenomenal results.

In terms of advertising, ITC managed to bring about unique element of classical functional advertising into a very image driven category. ITC has shortlisted 12 ways of connecting with the consumers in the form of communication rather than depending on one media. The company tends to focus on narrower target groups rather than larger target groups. Apart from this, the company also thrives on innovative advertising, be it print, digital or last-minute reach. It also does rigorous optimization for efficiency and has a very selective impact strategy so there is a lot of efficiency driven planning combined with impact.

ITC seems to have segmented the market very well and has different products to cater to the different segments. Point of purchase is another important aspect of the push and the pull. The company has a network of 1400 distributors, 4000 stockists, 30,000 people selling the products, servicing over a lakh markets and twenty lakh retailers around the country. To manage this network the company provides channel specialization which basically means tailor-made solution for various formats like grocery, convenience, retail, large format stores and rural retail. However, just like segmentation of consumers, ITC also does segmentation for retailers to identify their different needs, identifying the target retailers, how to provide differentiated service packs. The focus is on driving sales by creating multiple touch-points through various channels of communication, promotions.

The company has taken customer engagement to a whole new level. It recently involved some of its Facebook followers into actually doing some product development and research for some of its new product. During the ITC Vivel campaign in Kolkata during the Durga Puja this year, while the specially created television commercial featured the Knight riders, the company connected with people through 400 locations. In four days, the company reached overall 1.5 lakh individuals, of which 40,000-50,000 were from the target group.

The result
According to market reports, ITC has around six per cent market share in soaps and three per cent in shampoo, which is quite impressive in such a short span of operations.