Play fair

How selling in the men's fairness products market is different from the women's market.

First, the facts. One, women shop for men all the time. Two, many men "" a significant portion of total consumers, in fact "" use women's skin and hair care products. Three, the men's personal care products market is a fraction the size of the women's market.

Now, the dilemma. Should personal care product brands continue to sell only to women, knowing that a large number of customers are actually men, or should they launch separate brands for men (which will mean a huge outlay for a much-smaller market)? And if they do launch men-only brands, whom should they address "" the end-users, or the women who will actually pick up the products from store shelves?

the strategist examined the issue in the context of a relatively small, but significant market: fairness creams for men. Here's what we found.

THE HIDDEN CUSTOMER

The men's fairness market in India is still in its infancy, even though women's skin-lightening products have been around for several decades now. Two months ago, Nivea India launched two skin-lightening products aimed at men, becoming the third major player "" after Emami and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) in the segment.

The category really came into being in 2005 when Emami launched Fair and Handsome, but the story behind its launch only underlines that men have been hidden customers for a while now.

When Emami was studying the market for ways to break HUL's stranglehold on the fairness products market "" HUL's Fair & Lovely has been the undisputed market leader since its launch in the 1970s "" it experienced an epiphany: over a third of Fair and Lovely's customers were men.

Given that the brand had an estimated turnover of over Rs 900 crore, this meant that there was a Rs 270-crore market waiting to be addressed. And these were existing users of fairness products "" consider the multitudes of potential customers.

Although Emami already had a women's fairness brand "" Naturally Fair "" it decided to leverage HUL's brand equity in the fairness market. Hence, Fair and Handsome. "We benefited from first mover's advantage," says Mohan Goenka, director, Emami. Fair and Handsome is a Rs 45-crore brand and growing at 25 per cent a year, he adds.

That's almost 50 per cent of the Rs 120-crore market. Most players expect the market to expand rapidly, at about 30 per cent a year. The focus then, right now, is more on growing the market than increasing market share.

"Men are eager to spend money on mobile phones, gadgets like iPods and cameras, and on grooming themselves. The stereotype macho look is now out "" today's heroes are well-groomed and well-dressed. We expect these factors to work in our favour," says Ashok Venkatramani, vice president, skincare, HUL.

Still, it won't be easy. A June 2007 report by international research agency Euromonitor points out that most men don't want to be seen buying moisturiser or any such skin care product, as the use of cosmetics continues to be regarded as a female habit.

"The way to change this perception might be by creation of awareness, by using a celebrity to show that grooming for men is acceptable and that it serves more of a functional than a cosmetic benefit," the report continues.

Sales pitch

All three men's fairness brands "" Emami's Fair and Handsome, HUL's Menz Activ and now, Nivea for Men's Whitening range "" are selling the same proposition, fairer skin. But interestingly, they have entirely different ways of going about it.

And, needless to say, selling fairness to men is not the same as selling fairness to women. Through the 1980s and 1990s, fairness creams (all for women) used only one communication platform "" marriage.

Even now, matrimonial ads specify fair skin, so it's not surprising that print and TV ads for skin-lightening products held out promises of "happily ever after" to millions of hopeful, dusky-complexioned girls. Still, it wouldn't do to entirely ditch a successful formula "" urban lore has it that HUL used to receive letters from grateful parents gushing over how Fair & Lovely had changed their daughters' lives.

So, Fair and Handsome tweaked it from "get the guy" to "get the girl". The first TV commercial showed a college student caught trying to steal a fairness cream from the girls' hostel. The next shot had the same young man being feted by girls after using the men's fairness product. The message was simple: using this product will make you more attractive to women.

If the launch campaign had a one-point agenda "" get male customers out in the open "" Emami's thinking is now more evolved: a few weeks ago it signed on actor Shah Rukh Khan as brand ambassador for Fair and Handsome.

"In the first year, we created awareness and initiated trials "" we wanted men to accept that they can use fairness creams. Now we are using a celebrity to make the product aspirational," explains Goenka.

That's a strategy HUL has already practised for some years now "" minus the celebrity endorsement, though. Around 2000, Fair & Lovely stopped holding out visions of beautiful brides to its target customers. Instead, it offered to change its customers' destinies.

Now, the product's ads show young women making it big as cricket commentators or film stars "" after using the product, of course. While Fair & Lovely's communication shift reflected changing societal attitudes, it also made the launch of a brand extension surprisingly easy: Menz Activ was launched in October 2006 on the same promise: a fairness cream that would change your life.

The TV commercial reflected that "" it showed a dark-skinned stuntman who gets the hero's role after he uses the cream. (Significantly, the stuntman's girlfriend hands him the tube of Menz Activ.) "All our promises for the men's cream have to be consistent with those of the mother brand," explains HUL's Venkatramani.

Look closely, and Emami and HUL's strategies for selling men's fairness creams are adaptations of their existing tactics in the women's market. Not so with Nivea for Men. Targeting a slightly older male customer group "" 25 to 35-year-olds, against the 18-24 age group for Emami and HUL "" Nivea India's communication is starkly different.

For one, the brand promise makes no mention of "fairness" "" working on the insight that that word is associated more with female solutions, the men's range has adopted the term "whitening". The promotion campaign, too, showcases the product as something that will take care of men in their busy workdays.

"We don't want to say that you will get successful with women or careers. Today, there is a lot of stress, a lot of travel and a lot of sunlight that one has to face. Hence, we promise to help men take care of their skin," says Kai Boris Bendix, managing director, Nivea India.

What will work? Marketing guru and CEO, AP Publicity, Alyque Padamsee favours the romantic angle. "A product that makes you more attractive to the opposite sex will always have takers," he says. Padamsee is speaking from experience "" he's the man who launched both Fair & Lovely and Fair and Handsome.

That's a thought seconded by A G Krishnamurthy, chairman, AGK Brand Consulting and founder of Mudra Communications. "Men getting more attention from women or doing better at work is more likely to achieve a connect than talking to them about skin care," he says.

Abraham Koshy, professor of marketing at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, offers a slightly different view. "All three brands have created distinct propositions for themselves. Such a situation will work to the benefit of all three," he believes.

Targeting men

Even if the message is different, the medium is almost identical when it comes to selling skin-lightening products to men "" nothing works like TV. Padamsee explains the rationale.

"For any newly launched brand, television is the most important medium. Unless you are seen constantly on television, retailers will not show confidence or back your brand," he points out.

But where women's fairness creams are advertised largely on Hindi movie and mass entertainment channels (such as Zee Cinema, Star Plus and Sony), sports and news channels do the trick for men's brands.

Emami spends more than 70 per cent of its advertising budget on television spots, favouring cricket, music and new channels. Nivea, too, advertises on news, sports and infotainment channels, as does HUL.

Television may be first choice for brand promotion, but men's fairness creams have also realised the importance of on-ground promotions and extensive outdoor presence. Menz Activ, for instance, put up hoardings at all traffic signals in Mumbai, at public toilets and barber shops, and handed out free samples at over 10,000 stores in 66 cities.

For its part, Emami went to over 100 colleges across the country, where it brought in dermatologists to explain the benefits of Fair and Handsome. Nivea is targeting upper class men, so it is heading to the malls and cinema halls, where kiosks and stalls advertise the need for skin care for men. "The best way to catch men is when they are outside," says Bendix.

Why are men's fairness products relying so heavily on onground initiatives? One reason may be that men do spend more time outdoors than women. But there's another reason "" this is a new category and building awareness is critical right now.

"On-ground activities generate huge awareness. Women's creams have been around for years, so they don't need to use this medium," explains Meenakshi Madhvani, managing partner, Spatial Access Solutions.

Surprisingly, unlike with women's cream, in-store promotions aren't priority for the men's market. While Emami's research apparently indicates that men are not averse to asking for the product by name, Venkatramani offers a different viewpoint.

"Our research shows that most first buyers of Menz Activ are women who bought it for husbands, brothers or boyfriends. Hence we don't see the need for a special effort at the point of sale."

The exception is Nivea, which plans to set up "men's zones" in modern format stores that will stock clothing, music and condoms apart from the Whitening range. "Men don't want to spend time shopping. We will make their task easier," says Bendix. Fair enough.