Health hype at a wedding mart

The wedding season is back. We're about to witness extravagant spending on jewellery, clothes and expensive presents. In such festive times will anyone listen to doctors talk shop on reproductive health?

Rajeev Bartaria, senior general manager at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), thinks so. This year, the pharma major has signed up for a stall at one of Delhi's big-ticket wedding exhibition events called 'Celebrating Vivaha.'

The idea is to use Vivaha as a platform to spread the birth control message among young married couples and promote its its two new oral contraceptive pills "" Elogen and Zerogen. "The event is related to marriage and it seemed like a perfect platform to take up health and pharmaceutical issues," says Bartaria.

Thousands of young brides-to-be and their mothers are expected to visit Vivaha, the four-day wedding event, starting on August 5 in New Delhi. At the venue, GSK will set up an information dissemination desk, distribute leaflets on contraceptives and station a platoon of doctors to answer consumer queries.

New to the Rs 85-90 crore oral contraceptive market, GlaxoSmithKline launched Elogen, a 20 micro gram low dosage estrogen pill and the zero-estrogen Zerogen pill in the domestic market in April this year.

According to Shiva Natarajan, marketing manager at GSK, myths about contraceptive use persist because the earlier generation of oral pills used to have higher dosage of estrogen leading to side-effects.

The new version of low dosage pills do not have side effects, he says. The company has signed an agreement with Organon India Ltd, a subsidiary of US-based Akzo Nobel, to manufacture the two pills.

Worldwide, 100 million women are said to be using oral contraceptives. In India, not more than two per cent women use the oral pill according to the National Family Health Survey. However, at 16 to 17 per cent a year, its growth rates are improving compared to the Rs 650 crore condom market which is said to be growing at two per cent.

Tarun Sarda, CEO of Vivaha Interactive, which is organising the event, is happy that a health kiosk will have a presence among wedding planners and card designers. "We want to to go beyond clothes and jewellery," he says. Vivaha will devote 1,600 sq metre floor space to luxury watches, designer lehengas and jewelled phones.

The wedding market size is said to be between Rs 35,000 crore-Rs 75,000 crore a year and Sarda expects his two wedding shows (the other one will be held in Mumbai) to do business worth Rs 100 crore.

This year Sarda has signed up Regent Watch & Jewellery, hair care brand Lazartique and, for extra hype, is flying in a celebrity make-up artist from fashion house Versace. But whether people will drop by at the GSK booth, it remains t be seen.