Not only upper crust, deos set to feel others

At present the size of the market is estimated to be about Rs 120-125 crore.

French are known to appreciate body odour. Even if there is no clear cut trend, Indians too are not averse to it.

If one sees the penetration of deodorants market so far in India, this trend will definitely have some acceptance.

Despite high volume of advertising, deodorants are still an extremely niche product in India, with penetration in the metros being as low as 15 per cent.

That's one reason why companies like Henkel (Fa) and Hindustan Lever (Axe and Rexona) are putting in so much effort into increasing visibility for the products.

Be it through tie ups with movies (Fa for Salaam Namaste) or creating a special zone - Axeland, the companies are going all out to see that more and more Indians roam around odourless.

Harish Manwani, chairman, HLL,has said deodorants would be the new focus area in India. Unilever is the market leader globally in this segment.

One look at the market size explains why Manwani is so keen on the category. At present the size of the market is estimated to be about Rs120-125 crore, and even if it grows to the size of some of the other South Asian countries, it would immediately be worth Rs 400 crore.

Anil Chopra, vice president HLL said, "The reported market growth has been fluctuating between 3 per cent and 15 per cent over the last five years. The CAGR over the last 5 years has been just 3 per cent."

But the companies are counting on the changing demographics and increase in the youth population to boost this rate of growth. Both Fa and Axe have stayed with their international positioning and brand campaigns which are specifically targetted to this group.

Rexona, on the other hand, has taken the more mass approach with the focus being dependability.

A Satishkumar, managing director, Henkel India said, "For Fa, the emphasis is on brand building over increasing the penetration of the product.

Spin-off products like soaps and talcs, work well to increase the brand awareness as they are low outlay products and allow more people to try the brand."

Chopra said that given that the market is so nascent, marketers would have to focus on education to create relevance for the benefit of the product and at the same time be innovative in terms of product offerings and pricing strategy.

Meanwhile, the companies are looking at a more well rounded communication packing including the internet and mobile apart from the more traditional media to increase their presence in urban India.