CavinKare to focus on branding

Plans TV commercials, roadshows to promote relaunched fairness cream

Chennai-based CavinKare is planning to focus on marketing strategies to build its customer base. The programmes on its agenda include road shows, television commercials and customer contact programmes.

The FMCG major, which relaunched its fairness cream 'Fairever' in Hyderabad on Friday, is also looking at generating trials by distributing samples through popular magazines.

While the television commercials of the relaunched Fairever would go on air from December 25, 2004, the road shows will kick off shortly in south India.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch, K Rajeshwari, marketing manager of CavinKare Private Limited, said, "There is so much competition in the FMCG sector today that branding a product has become very essential. It is, therefore, a conscious strategy on our part to focus on marketing our products to get a greater share of the FMCG pie."

"Although we rank second in the fairness cream segment, we know that the gap that we need to cover is huge. Therefore, we need to prioritise marketing to catch the consumers," Rajeshwari said.

CavinKare's Fairever is the second leading fairness cream brand in the country. The product has a share of only eight per cent in the fairness cream market that is worth Rs 700 crore.

Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL)'s 'Fair & Lovely' is the market leader in this segment with a marketshare of around 78 per cent.

"The era of price gains has gone. Today a customer-base cannot be built only on the basis of discounts and reduced prices," Rajeshwari said.

"Our advertising and marketing spend has definitely increased over the years although we would not like to disclose the actual figures," she added.

While the company spends about 15 per cent of its sales revenues on marketing, it spends just about three per cent on research and development. On the other hand, the marketing spend for HLL's Fair & Lovely is estimated to be around Rs 90 crore.

"We are looking at new launches as well. But right now we are focussing on product relaunches to constantly remind our customers of our presence," Rajeshwari said.

"For instance, the new Fairever that was relaunched in the city today has additional components in the form of fruit vitalisers, new packaging and new fragrance," she added.

CavinKare's other brands include Meera, Chik, Nyle, Chinnis and Ruchi. The company is also planning to relaunch its Nyle brand of shampoo in the near future.