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Tag: GSK Consumer Healthcare

  • Government officials, NGOs, corporatesand citizens to come together to support the cause

    Amitabh joins hands with Network18 on malnourishment

    By A Correspondent

     

    Horlicks and Network18 have roped in actor Amitabh Bachchan as they launched ‘Mission Poshan’ to create awareness about malnourishment amongst children in the country. The campaign will support the government’s vision of a healthy and nourished India, in sync with Prime Minister’s National Nutrition Mission. The four-year long initiative commenced from yesterday (May 31).

     

    Commenting on the campaign Navneet Saluja, Managing Director, GSK Consumer Healthcare said:“Our initiative has a singular goal – to help promote the need for nutritional needs across rural and urban India. We are fortunate to have Amitabh Bachchan partner us in this significant journey towards addressing the issue of malnutrition in our country. Horlicks has been a household name for over 100 years and Horlicks Mission Poshan is a small step to support the National Nutrition Mission of the Government of India. We are committed to dialling up mass awareness around malnourishment and working with the civil society towards its eradication.”

     

    Added Priyanka Kaul, President- Marketing, Network18: “Serving the public good is vital to our journalistic mission at Network18 which is why we are proud that every day hundreds of our journalists are out on the field telling the stories of ordinary and extraordinary Indians working to transform our lives for the better. We believe that it’s important for us to come together as a nation to help solve these crucial issues, and as a media organisation we have committed ourselves to these initiatives. We feel ensuring the nutrition of our next generation is key to India’s future. We are proud to partner with GSK and Amitabh Bachchan for ‘Mission Poshan’ to spread the message of nutrition to each and every citizen and nourish lives of children across India.”

     

     

  • Bahl will be based in Gurugram and report into Manoj Kumar, Managing Director

    GSK Consumer Healthcare appoints Vikram Bahl as Area Marketing Lead

    By A Correspondent

     

    GSK Consumer Healthcare announced the appointment of Vikram Bahl as the Area Marketing Lead for Nutrition and Digestive Health. Vikram will be based in Gurugram and report into Manoj Kumar, Managing Director, GSK Consumer Healthcare Ltd. He succeeds Prashant Pandey who moves to Bangladesh as General Manager – MyBaN (Myanmar, Bangladesh & Nepal).

     

    Bahl joins GSK from Kellogg where he was the Global Innovation Lead for wholesome and savoury snacks, based out of their headquarters in the US.

     

    Announcing the changes, Manoj Kumar, Managing Director, GSK Consumer Healthcare Ltd, said: “We are pleased to welcome Vikram on board. He brings with him over 23 years of rich experience and in-depth knowledge working across various FMCG companies globally and India. With such extensive experience in driving businesses and building brands, I am confident that Vikram will help us in taking the Nutrition & Digestive Health category to greater heights.”

     

  • New variant aims to offer the dual benefit of sensitivity relief along with restoring natural whiteness of teeth

    Sensodyne Whitening highlights new features in latest campaign

    By A Correspondent

     

    For those suffering from tooth sensitivity, choosing between a whitening toothpaste and the one that helps relieve their sensitivity becomes a difficult choice. Usually, they are left with no choice but to compromise one for the other. With the launch of Sensodyne Whitening, GSK aims to offer the dual benefit of sensitivity relief along with restoring natural whiteness of teeth.

     

    Shot in London, in three different languages, each TVC features an actual consumer and is a genuine, unscripted account of their experience with the brand. This is the first time ever that Sensodyne is using Consumer testimonials for TV advertising in India. With this launch, GREY group India and GREY London have partnered in handling campaigns with multiple stakeholders and complex logistics.

     

    Anurita Chopra, Area Marketing Director, ISC Oral Health, GSK Consumer Healthcare said, “GSK Consumer Healthcare has always endeavored to develop new products catering to the constantly changing needs of its consumers. A lot of sensitivity sufferers cope with sensitive teeth because they believe their regular toothpaste gives them more important benefits like whitening. Sensodyne Whitening toothpaste, will benefit in sensitive teeth and help bring back the natural whiteness of teeth on daily usage. Being a consumer preferred and expert endorsed brand globally, we are confident that this largest selling variant globally will be well received by our consumers.”

     

    Samir Datar, Vice President & Office Head, Grey group India said,”The category communication codes for a whitening oral care product have always been about vanity and dialling up the glamour quotient. For us, it was important to keep the Sensodyne brand character of authenticity and trust in mind, and hence showcase work that spoke of a more intrinsic motivation for such a product, which was inner happiness and self-confidence. To drive home this point better, we also used real consumer testimonials, for the first time for brand Sensodyne in India’.

     

    The major unlock for us was to recognize the need for multiple benefits in today’s demanding consumer, and the delivery of the brand and the product on the same. Our task thus was to communicate the dual promise of new Sensodyne Whitening and showing how one doesn’t have to compromise one oral care need over the other”, said Bikram Bindra, Vice President and Strategic Planning Head, Grey group Delhi.

     

    A high decibel, six week media plan is kick-started with spots across all the major channels.

     

  • Horlicks re-launches its chocolate flavour with better taste and new packaging

    JWT unveils new campaign for Horlicks

    By A Correspondent

     

    GSK Consumer Healthcare is re-launching the chocolate flavour of its flagship product Horlicks, in new packaging, making the improved offering crunchier, chocolatier and yummier in taste.

     

    The launch is supported by a 360 degree outreach programme including print and television campaigns.  It will also be supported by extensive on-ground activations and an exciting digital engagement programme.

     

    The new TVC for the campaign opens with two children (brothers) sitting across their dining table. When it is evident that they are not excited by their plain glass of milk, their mother replaces the old chocolate drink with the new and improved Chocolate Horlicks. As one brother gulps down the content of his glass in a few seconds, the other one begins drooling over it. He exclaims that new Horlicks is extremely chocolaty and then tries to snatch the second glass as well. The TVC ends by saying that with the chocolatier and best ever Chocolate Horlicks, the children will surely finish off their glass of milk (Doodh ka glass khallaas).

     

    Talking about the campaign, Prashant Pandey, EVP Marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare says, “At GSK, our offerings are designed to cater to ever-changing and evolving consumer needs. Chocolate Horlicks is one of our most successful flavours and its taste enjoys high equity with children. The re-launch of the product is aimed to delight them – with not just the improved taste but also superior packaging.”

     

    Tanurupa Pal, VP and Executive Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson, added, “We have used a simple moment between two brothers to highlight the irresistible quality of the new Chocolate Horlicks. In the story, it becomes a tool in the mother’s hand to help her turn her milk-fussy kids into Chocolate Horlicks lovers.”

     

  • The campaign is supported by a 360 degree outreach across print, TV and digital

    Horlicks looks to reinstate leadership stand via new campaign

    By A Correspondent

     

    GSK Consumer Healthcare’s flagship product Horlicks has launched a new campaign – ‘Food Science’. The campaign is a fresh communication designed to reinstate India’s leading HFD designed with Food science, is clinically proven to make children taller, stronger, sharper.

     

    The new TVC by Horlicks features a mother cutting fruits for her child who is about to leave for his tuition classes. The camera zooms in on a plate with apple slices kept next to another plate with cookies and cake. As the scene freezes, a nutritionist enters the kitchen and says that while a mother tries and does everything for her child’s nutrition, but how can she be sure that the nutrition of evening snack will suffice? The nutritionist then picks up a bottle of Horlicks from the shelf and mentions about consumption of Horlicks both during morning and evening as it is made with ‘Food Science’ – comprising of key natural ingredients like wheat, barley, milk and 23 vital nutrients. The TVC ends with a note that ‘Do baar Horlicks do. Nutrition ko aur sure karo!’

     

    Commenting on the TVC, Tanurupa Pal, VP and Executive Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson said, “Children develop a natural preference for foods they enjoy the most, so the challenge for a mother is to make healthy choices appealing. This new communication for Horlicks has been designed to ensure that mothers understand that Horlicks has the best of food and science and thus convince them to give their child that second cup of Horlicks in the day.”

     

    The campaign is supported by a 360 degree outreach across print, TV and digital.

     

  • The anthem is all about being committed to the game and not stopping even after winning

    Boost unveils new anthem to cheer cricket champions

    By A Correspondent

     

    GSK Consumer Healthcare’s health food drink Boost has launched a new anthem to cheer heroes. Composed and sung by music director GV Prakash, “Hey Champion, Stay Champion” is an initiative to encourage and show support to Dhoni and Virat as they gear up for the upcoming cricket season.

     

    Boost believes that while becoming a champion is tough, staying a champion is even tougher. Staying a champion requires more determination, more practice and thus more stamina to endure the journey. The anthem is all about being committed to the game and not stopping even after winning. With creative thought by Romit Nair (JWT) and lyrics penned by GV Prakash, the song exhilarates passion and urges our cricket heroes to bring back the glory. It motivates people to come together and cheer for them.

     

    Jayant Singh, EVP Marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare India said, “We all love and worship cricket in India. The Boost anthem is our way of cheering our heroes and letting them know that we stand by them. Boost has always been about fuelling the spirit to win and the Hey Champion, Stay Champion campaign is a celebration of the winning spirit of our cricket heroes. We invite all cricket enthusiasts to join in and cheer our heroes this cricket season.”

     

    “Launching anything with the cricket fever around is not only tough but also very expensive. With a host of brands all trying to occupy this space, our best bet was to give something that is hummable and cheer-worthy, what better than an Anthem. It should not only beat the clutter, but also enhance the association of Boost with its core proposition”, says Shan Jain Principal Partner, GSK Mindshare.

     

  • Horlicks is currently in a frenetic expansion mode. It's revitalised its focus on biscuits launched in 1993 and is making forays into areas like noodles and more recently oats.

    Why (and how) GSK is ready with Plan B for Horlicks ?

    By Amit Bapna & Ravi Balakrishnan

     

    It’s a tough job keeping a brand alive for 140 years. It’s tougher yet trying to make it stand for something different after it has spent the bulk of its existence, defining a very specific category: in the case of Horlicks, a malted milk drink. But that’s just what Horlicks has been trying to do, especially in India.

     

    Arriving on Indian shores in colonial times, the brand acquired enormous equity post independence, especially in the East and South. It accounts for 46.4% of the approximately Rs 5,000 crore health food drink category. The Indian subcontinent is currently the brand’s largest market, accounting for 70%- 80% of global volumes. And also the best site for experiments in seeing just how far the brand can go.

     

    Horlicks is currently in a frenetic expansion mode. It’s revitalised its focus on biscuits launched in 1993 and is making forays into areas like noodles and more recently oats. This is hardly unique: many legacy brands are in a similar rush to stand for a lot more – Lifebuoy and Pears for instance, which have expanded into hand sanitisers and face wash.

     

    In the case of Horlicks though, previous attempts to stretch the brand have been problematic. NutriBar, an energy bar launched in 2009 has been withdrawn as also flavoured milk which hit the market around the same time. According to marketing consultant Harish Bijoor, the taste profile of these products militated against expectations from the brand.

     

    It tried to get into the confectionery space with cream biscuits only to back out. Horlicks is now focusing on the high function space with nutritional biscuits. Says Seema Gupta, assistant professor – marketing, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, “Biscuits is driven by taste or habit, and fortified calcium and nutrients is not the prime mover of the category.” It can be an added benefit if the variety and taste is as good as that of the entrenched brands, she adds.

     

    The foray into food, currently contributes to around 10% of Horlicks’ share. Of these, biscuits still lead, with recent launches like noodles performing below expectations. At the moment, Horlicks is back to the drawing board, launching oats, diversifying its biscuit portfolio and tweaking noodles. Says Jayant Singh, executive vice president – marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare, “We found that 40% of households are using noodles for breakfast. When we launched we were operating in all segments but then moved in the higher end, healthy multigrain area.” Adds Zubair Ahmed, managing director, GSK Consumer Healthcare, “Currently we are relooking at our entire positioning and are revisiting the category.”

     

    It’s betting big instead on nutritional and digestive biscuits, as a healthy snacking option and oats to get a larger share of the breakfast table. At 40% annually, oats is the fastest growing segment in the breakfast cereal market valued at over Rs 600 crore. Horlicks is a late entrant in a market packed with Quaker, Saffola, Britannia and Kellogg’s. Starting with white oats in 2011, this year has seen the launch of flavours. On this front the brand is facing a bit of friction and as per industry sources there is a divided house internally.

     

    There is a school of thought that feels the masala association can lead to equity dilution. Says marketing consultant Sunil Alagh, “In many ways, their hands are tied by the UK headquarters who decide what can and can’t be done. They are obsessed with serious health attributes – which is right for their core malt drink. But in snacking the consumer in India is not ready yet. Maybe they could go in for a sub brand since the mother brand is so strongly associated with health.”

     

    It’s a classic chicken and egg conundrum: variants and extensions are on a low base and for them to achieve scale they need push on all sides, which often does not happen due to an over-crowded market, points out the CEO of a brand consulting firm, on condition of anonymity. In Horlicks’ case since the core brand is consumed mostly by children (over 80%), most resources are spent on increasing off take or salience. Even within the milk food drink space, it becomes very difficult for variants, for example, for women or diabetics to create the kind of impact that is required for behaviour change, he points out.

     

    Horlicks is not relying solely on its new portfolio. Its flagship is becoming more accessible to rural markets with SKUs ranging from Rs 5 sachets to a 2 kg pack costing approximately Rs 300. “We have seen our volumes grow 300%-400%. As a part of our access agenda, we look at having close to a billion serves next year,” shares Singh.

     

    By all reckoning, the brand faces an uphill slog. As Dr M G Parameswaran, executive director & CEO, Draftfcb+Ulka, puts it, monolithic brands can get into closely related categories, but cracking segments with different product codes is difficult. Marketing consultant Sunil Alagh who claims to have taken Horlicks biscuits from a Rs 40 crore to a Rs 100 crore business in 18 months in a stint as advisor, points to a more severe problem: “The first rule of thumb is to ensure that you have the best team and never use the existing sales force.

     

    This is because initially the sales tend to be low since it’s a new product. The apparent rewards seem less and it requires more work. No matter what you tell them, the sales team will spend 90% of time on the existing products and only 10% on the new. Brand extensions require the primary task of getting your team out of their comfort zone.” In 2010, when he advised Horlicks, he recalls the biggest challenge was from within. He was able to grow the biscuit category only after insisting on a separate sales force.

     

    The other problem is more intrinsic to what Horlicks stands for. Health was always its stock in trade; an outlandish ad from the 1930s claimed a cup before bedtime prevented “night starvation.” However, health has become an almost generic proposition flogged by everyone from air conditioners to chewing gum. Noodle category leader Maggi has a line that says “taste bhi, health bhi”; by focusing on health, Horlicks is trying to sell fun categories in a serious manner. As Mr Alagh puts it, “the biggest problem and opportunity for the brand is that in the East and South it’s viewed as something that’s a preventive and in the other half of the country its associated with ‘cure’.” So, can the 140 year old learn a few new tricks?

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2013, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • A study of the aggregate financial performance of the leading 10 FMCG companies over the past eight quarters shows that the industry has grown at an average 16-21 per cent in the past two years

    FMCGs like HUL, Dabur, Godrej, Marico on consumption-driven growth

    By A Correspondent

     

    India’s fast-moving consumer goods, or the FMCG sector, has been able to weather the impact of an economic slowdown and rising input costs yet another quarter, as firms led by HUL beat street expectations both on top line and bottom line growth.

     

    A study of the aggregate financial performance of the leading 10 FMCG companies over the past eight quarters shows that the industry has grown at an average 16-21 per cent in the past two years with average operating margins being 22 per cent.

     

    Very few other industries can boast of having such a performance track record. “The consumer sector typically is the last and the least to suffer during a slowdown,” said Manoj Menon, senior analyst at Kotak Institutional Equities.

     

    Most companies are reaping the benefits of the direct distribution expansion mostly in rural India. HUL, for instance, has tripled its rural penetration in the last couple of years. Sales from modern trade have also been a strong growth driver for companies. Marico has posted a growth of over 45 per cent in revenues from its rural and modern trade businesses during FY12.

     

    The quarter to March performance of FMCG companies like HUL, Dabur, Godrej Consumer Products, Marico, Asian Paints, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Healthcare and Jubilant Foodworks is also a reflection of consumption-driven growth.

     

    Half of HUL’s 20 per cent revenue growth during the March quarter was volume driven. Dabur’s domestic sales rose 19.2 per cent with volumes rising 9.5 per cent. Godrej Consumer Products logged 30 per cent sales in soaps in India – 17 per cent of which was volume-driven. Asian Paints registered 29 per cent growth in its revenues from domestic business, of which 15 per cent was volume growth.

     

    The company had raised prices by close to 12 per cent on its portfolio during the quarter. Jubilant Foodworks, owner of the Dominos Pizza franchise in India, reported 26 per cent same store growth, which was almost entirely volume-driven despite the company raising its menu prices by 10 per cent. Marico has been able to achieve a 17 per cent volume growth for the March quarter from a total revenue growth of 23 per cent for the quarter.

     

    GSK Consumer Healthcare registered 14.5 per cent increase in net sales – 7 per cent of which was driven by volume growth and the rest through higher realisations on account of price increases. Nestle was probably the only company to have a largely value-driven revenue growth of 13 per cent during the March quarter.

     

    Exceptional value growth always carries the risk of hurting volumes. Till now, most FMCG companies have been able to perform well while balancing between volume and value growth. “Over the long run, we see consumer demand being resilient,” Nitin Paranjpe, chief executive officer of HUL, had said at the press conference following the company’s results. According to Mr Paranjpe, the secular trend of consumers is towards uptrading rather than downtrading.

     

    “The demand for consumer goods is relatively inelastic compared to that of other products,” explained Milind Sarwate, group chief financial officer, Marico. An earlier ETIG analysis of the growth in revenues and profits of leading FMCG companies revealed that companies registered a much faster growth in revenues and profits during periods of high inflation (in 1994-98 and again from 2006 till date) compared with periods of low inflation (1999-2005).

     

    “During an inflationary period, there is a likely market share gain for organised players from the unorganised regional players,” Mr Menon explained. Larger firms enjoy economies of scale on account of bulk buying and higher pricing power on their reputed brands.

     

    The ET FMCG Index has a price to earnings multiple of 36 against the Sensex P/E of 16.1. Stocks of Godrej Consumer Products and Asian Paints hit a new high ahead of the companies’ result announcements. Stocks of HUL, Marico, Dabur, Glaxosmithkline Consumer Healthcare and Jubilant Foodworks are hovering near record high levels.

     

    However, their current valuations are still lower than their all-time record levels. In case the broader economy is sluggish, analysts fear that the going may not be good for the sector in the coming quarters. “Moderation is very much on the anvil,” cautioned Mr Menon. For now, FMCG companies continue to live up to their reputation of being a defensive investment play.

     

    Source: The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved