Sudheer Srinivas is Marketing Manager at The Himalaya Drug Company. He looks after the newly launched division Himalaya Wellness. Divided into three wings, it comprises Pure Herbs, General Wellness and Nutrition, addressing a wide spectrum of medical issues – from preventive care to health management. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM with Anuka Roy speaking to him Read on…
What is the importance of BTL in the wellness care products space?
The importance of retailing for our wellness range is because of many reasons. First, people today can afford and second, they think about their health more than anything today. Third, people have stopped being reactive and started being proactive over their health issues. Earlier when we used to go to a doctor we would spend Rs 50 maximum but today it is minimum of three to four thousand rupees. People today want a solution for their basic health care needs which they can pick it up along with their monthly shopping and they would want to make it a part of their lifestyle. The need for having a retailing for wellness range is the elderly population. The life expectancy of India today is 72 years. Â But the quality of life between 52 and 72 years have suffered a lot. They go through diabetes, arthritis, infections etc. What this population is looking for is a daily health supplement which maintains their health apart from the regular medication that their doctor prescribes. They would prefer picking up Guduchi tablet, considering the benefits of it. Even Guduchi as a product is popular among the working professionals.
So, BTL is very important for wellness care products. And, we would target it along with awareness. Today, somebody who is overweight may be looking for a solution but may not have found it. In the BTL space, there are health advisers give out pamphlets, talk to them about the products at Himalaya Wellness. That is helping us a lot. Creating awareness via BTL is what we are working on.
What are the specific products or services for which BTL activations are used at Himalaya Wellness?
First is our over weight, obesity product, second is our health drink. Third are our general category products like cold and pain balms, foot care crème. These are the three main categories. And the range, where we have Karela and other products, we educate the people, we do not insist on buying that. We tell them you have a solution in hand if you are suffering from diabetes or hyper cholesterol.
How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?
BTL is the only way we have taken as a policy from our division. It is the only thing that we are exposing our brands to.
Do you see a special role for BTL in the rural market?
The general belief among all of us city dwellers is that Class B and C towns are not that much health oriented. But the reverse is true. Today, even the B and C town people are very health conscious, they go to gyms , they jog and walk. They are interested in their health. So, BTL is very important in rural also. Rural, not the village kind but towns with less than five lakh population. Considering the wellness products, I would not recommend ATL because I would not take an anti-obesity product just because a Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan tells me to. The brand benefit should talk and it talks better we feel through BTL.
Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?
We do not have an ATL plan at all. Not in the wellness portfolio.We haveseparate team promoting these products to Doctors community also. Even today, doctors are very important to generate the trigger of product. We strongly believe in that and are promoting to doctors through separate channel. Medical Representatives who approach the doctors and we have doctors across the country prescribing our products.
Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
We do a lot of POSM (Point of Sale Materials) and product activations. We do a lot of tasting campaigns for our health drink. We do nutritional talk programmes, doctor meets, chemist meets, branding meets, all these activities. And all this is targeted at increasing the awareness.
Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?
Where it requires a specific skill set we do it with an outside agency. The regular activities are done through our staff only.
While sales and salience are good indicators of its success, what are the attributes you look at to measure the success of a BTL campaign?
Firstly, it is sales. Secondly, what we look for is repeat process. Third thing is we conduct regular market insights. For our health drink, we are currently looking at a small sample size in four or five cities to find out the brand awareness and things like that. So, we look at what was our target and what we have achieved in terms of awareness. That is a very realistic measure of my BTL activities.
There are many organisations who often do new launches almost entirely on BTL aided with an outdoor and/or digital blitz? Your view on this. Given rising media costs, do you see BTL managing on its own, without ATL?
For certain categories, definitely yes, BTL can be the only mode of promotion. Media cost is definitely rising. For our set of products it would not make sense in going ATL. So, BTL is here to stay and is very important.