Traditional media continues to be a big focus for Dabur – India Retailing

India is at the cusp of digital revolution and Dabur India, a world leader in Natural Health Care and Ayurveda with a portfolio of over 250 Herbal/Ayurvedic products, is no exception to this trend.

The 132-year-old company – promoted by the Burman family – started operating in 1884 as an Ayurvedic medicines company. From its humble beginnings in the bylanes of Calcutta, Dabur India Ltd has come a long way today to become one of the biggest Indian-owned consumer goods companies with the largest herbal and natural product portfolio in the world. And now, it is up for something big in the digital space.

The company with revenues of over Rs 8,436 crore and market capital of Rs 44,000 crore started its digital operations three years ago and since then there has been no looking back. Not only has the company delivered successful digital campaigns like ‘Brave and Beautiful’ and ‘700 Se 7 Kadam’ but it also won praise from tech industry leaders like Google for their digital initiatives.

Indiaretailling spoke to Head of Marketing Services, Dabur India Ltd, Rohit Prakash Gupta to understand what steps the age-old company is taking to expand its organic reach:-

In the last two years, Dabur has been undergoing transformation to become a “young, modern, and socially conscious organization”. What online marketing strategies has the brand adopted in this direction?

Dabur is today the world’s largest Ayurvedic and Natural health care company with a portfolio of products on the Herbal/Ayurvedic platform. Our wide range of nature and Ayurveda-based products and medicines seek to address the health and wellness needs of our billions of consumers across continents.

Dabur has embarked on a journey to make itself ‘Future Ready’, not just with its products, but also with its communications, the way it reaches out to consumers and future employees. Under this initiative, we have transformed ourselves to become a ‘young, modern, vibrant and a socially conscious organization’. Digital is a key pillar of this strategy.

To engage with our consumers, we have built touch points on our corporate website through feature like reco-engine and social tag boards. Dabur is taking rapid strides in this area and its digital initiatives have won praise from tech industry leaders like Google, which prepared a special case study on the company.

For modernity we have recently won an award for Best use of Apps/Games for Marketing.  Apart from that we have also bagged IDMA Award for best use of Social Media, MBN-IDMA Award for your trusted beauty companion, BnB-Goa Fest for Digital Direct Response, MBN-MMA Award for Best Mobile and CRM site.

Today, consumers are increasingly going online to seek information about various products and also for making purchases. Dabur also uses the Internet and various emerging social media platforms to communicate frequently and directly with customers. We are working with multiple partners across many categories to sell our range of products online. In addition, special e-commerce portals have been created for specific products like gift packs and energizers.

Throw some light on Dabur’s journey in exploring the full potential of the online world (shift from traditional to online medium).

The traditional media continues to be a big focus area for Dabur. Digital is the new buzz word today and digital marketing is bound to grow faster in the future. However, the traditional media continues to be relevant.

Dabur has embraced technology in a big way to better reach out to the modern day consumer and better service their needs. By creating interfaces on the digital social platform, Dabur as an entity and its various brands are reaching out to consumers, interacting with them and, in the process, enabling them to become our brand ambassadors.

We follow an integrated marketing communication approach where all the various touch-points like TV, Print, Radio, Digital and even Point of Sale communicate the same message. Digital today accounts for about 5-10 per cent of our total ad spends.

READ MORE: Dabur remains unfazed by competition from Patanjali

How are you leveraging the digital medium to acquire customers and create innovative products?

According to the CII-BCG report referred to earlier, the disruption in Consumer Goods due to digital would increase at an unprecedented pace. Proliferation in Internet connectivity, evolution of new business models and increase in digital media consumption would provide companies enormous opportunities to create value.

We have also forged successful partnerships with most e-grocers and are working with multiple partners across categories to sell our products online. Dabur has joined hands with online marketplace Snapdeal to set up an e-store, called LiveVEDA, for its range of Ayurvedic products. E-commerce browsing is becoming a catchment area for brands and there is a substantial growth in the online health care market. This, we feel, is a significant opportunity for the future.

Dabur has taken beauty, health and wellness to the digital world with four dedicated portals – www.daburmediclub.com, www.liveveda.com, www.mybeautynaturally.com and www.daburdentalcare.com.

We, at Dabur, believe that content is key in digital communication. Content that is engaging and build dialogue with the consumers is what drives any digital brand campaign. With this background, Dabur has invested in creating content warehouse for its brands by developing these interactive websites addressing the three core verticals — oral care, skin and hair care and health care. In order to create a virtual content pool and further taking this content to consumers using digital media like Youtube, Facebook etc.

How has Dabur – being a 132 year old company – changed its marketing strategy to make it attractive for the younger audience?

Dabur has embarked on a new journey to make itself future ready, not just with its products, but also with its communications, the way it reaches out to consumers and future employees.

The first pillar of this getting Future Ready strategy is to revamp and recraft our trusted brands like Chyawanprash, PudinHara, Hajmola, Dashmularishta etc to make them more relevant and appealing to Gen Z. While the new products sought to appeal to youth, even the campaigns are being tailored and crafted to speak their language. This forms the second pillar of this strategy.

Today’s youth are more socially aware and want to participate in bringing about a change in the society. So, product campaigns have to be about touching an emotional chord with the audience and helping them find the heroes in themselves.

Our recent campaigns have reflected this. Vatika’s Brave and Beautiful campaign is an example of this, where the protagonist’s story of coming out stronger after losing all her hair to cancer, delivers this message aptly. Similarly, the ‘700 Se 7 Kadam’ campaign on Sanifresh talks about protecting the dignity of women in India by bringing toilets closer to their homes.

These new campaigns, both of which were first released in the digital space, have been very well received. The Brave and Beautiful campaign, for instance, received over 3 million views within just a month of its online launch and has become one of the most talked about campaigns in recent times. It has also become the single most awarded campaign at the Goafest 2015, winning the Grand Prix along with seven other trophies. Meanwhile, the Sanifresh campaign was chosen as one of the 10 Best Campaigns of the Year.

Digital forms the third pillar of this strategy. Dabur is taking rapid strides in this area and our digital initiatives have won praise from tech industry leaders like Google, which prepared a special case study on Dabur.

READ MORE: Dabur India to expand e-commerce presence

Dabur launched three online portals and after six months, they were re-launched. What was the reason behind re-launching them and how are these portals performing now?

Dabur had initially soft-launched the three unique portals — LiveVeda, MyBeautyNaturally and DaburDentalCare. communicate directly with the consumers who were seek information about various products as also health and beauty care tips online. Through these portals, we have been interacting with them and, in the process, enabling them to become our brand ambassadors. Basis the consumer feedback that we received over a period of time and keeping in view the new and emerging needs of consumers, we have been regularly updating these portals. It’s not a relaunch, it is more an updation to remain current and relevant to the ever-changing needs of our consumers. We have also added a ‘BUY NOW’ option on these portals to help the consumers make online purchases as well. All of these portals are doing well.

Being a 132-year-old brand, Dabur is known for bringing innovation while keeping the legacy intact. What sort of marketing strategies have you planned keeping this in mind?

Dabur has been marrying the age-old traditional knowledge of Ayurveda with modern day science to not just develop highly efficacious products but also scientifically prove the benefits of each ingredient. We have been offering our consumers the benefits of science based Ayurveda in modern, ready-to-use formats.

As mentioned earlier, we have now rolled out a series of initiatives aimed at becoming Future Ready, both with our products and with the way we communicate with our consumers.

What are the major challenges faced by Dabur in the online marketing space and what steps has the company taken to overcome them?

These are still early days in the online marketing space. Most companies are still trying to understand, learn and adapt to the specific needs of the online marketplace. We have worked extensively with our creative teams and held a number of training sessions that have helped us understand how we can leverage the digital space better to both understand our consumers and also to better serve their needs.

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