Company Name: Ghadi Detergent
Founder Name: Muralidhar Gyanchandani and Bimal Kumar Gyanchandani.
RSPL group (Rohit surfactants Pvt Ltd) launched detergent under the brand name Ghadi Detergent in the year 1987. It is a Kanpur based conglomerate Company doing business in diversified range of products.
How it all started
In the year 1987 when Ghadi detergent was launched by the Gyanchandani’s, the market was already dominated by big brands like Nirma and Surf. Just a year before that is in 1986, Wheel was launched by HUL.
In such a scenario, the Gyanchandani’s took the risk of launching their own product without much public and media attention. In the year 1988, Bimal Kumar and Muralidhar Gyanchandani incorporated Mahadeo Soap Industries Private Limited and started manufacturing Ghadi Detergent. Eventually in the year 2005, Mahadeo soap Industries changed their name and started using RSPL (Rohit Surfactants Private Limited).
The detergent industry started in India in 1957, when the first manufacture synthetic detergent was made in Mumbai. In 1930, the German produced synthetic detergent after the World War-I for the first time. Synthetic detergent was far better than soap. Sulphonates was used in the detergent to remove the dirt from the clothes.
However, sulphonates release a huge amount of the foam in the water, which is not eco-friendly. Thus, the public pressurized the manufacturer to change the substances, and then they changed it to biodegradable substances. In 1969, Nirma was launched in the Indian market.
It is said that the founders were inspired by the success of Nirma which was launched in the year 1969 and within just a time span of 4 years, it eliminated big brands like Surf and managed to become the market leader with around 30% market share. This success of Nirma urged the founders of Ghadi Detergent to give it a try. Their endeavors did not go waste as Ghadi detergent captured the market in 2012 after having defeated the success of biggies like Wheel from the HUL group.
From the introduction of Ghadi Detergent and till date, big brands like P&G and HUL and some of the local brands have been capturing the market. It is in the year 2012 that Ghadi detergent came into the limelight after having surpassed Wheel from HUL brand. It then grabbed the top market share and has been one of the popular household names. It took around 25 long years for Ghadi Detergent to become the market leader in synthetic detergent market. In November 2012, the Company had 17.4% shares which was more than Wheel’ s market share at that time.
Ghadi Detergent’s Marketing strategies and the reasons behind its success
When Ghadi detergent was launched, Nirma was the top player in the detergent market. However just a year after that is in the year 1988, HUL launched Wheel to take over Nirma and was successful in snatching the top position from Nirma in the year 2000. Now Ghadi had two of the big brands to compete with. It took about 25 years for Ghadi detergent to become the market leader and in the year 2012, Ghadi detergent was at the top brand in the detergent market.
Ghadi Detergent undertook various marketing strategies to capture the detergent market. As the founders of Ghadi detergent were inspired by the success of Nirma, they followed the footsteps of Nirma vehemently in the hope to make their presence felt strongly in the growing market of detergents.
As the success of Nirma was not from market shares but from the expansion of market, Ghadi detergent also did not go on investing in market shares. Instead the Company tried to expand its business just like its Mentor Company did in the 1970’s. Ghadi followed the policy of aggressive pricing and kept the prices of the detergents low so as to capture the market from the bottom. The low price of the detergents urged the soap users from switching from laundry soaps to detergent powders.
Ghadi detergent has targeted the mass consumer market that is associated with economy class people as its target consumer. The company mainly provides its products to families and household as well as laundry stores. Ghadi is a brand who offers a quality product at reasonable prices.
The company adopts penetration pricing policy, has sold its product at very reasonable and affordable rates. Ghadi targeted its home market in Uttar Pradesh which itself counts for about 12% of the nation’s FMCG sales. So instead of uncertain targeting to biggies like P&G and HUL, this strategy was like striking the bird in the eye. After capturing the UP market, the Company focused on other adjoining big states like Bihar, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh.
To have a stronger dealer base to push the margin of sales, the Company provided 6 to 7% of the profit margin to its dealers which was comparatively higher than what its competitors were providing to their dealers.
Since April 2011 the parent Company of Ghadi, RSPL launched a new mobile application to book sales faster and to track the position of the distributors. The application was named Msales and it was GPS enabled to easily locate the position of the sales distributors and to increase the sales.
Campaign
RSPL being the parent Company of Ghadi detergent undertook various marketing campaigns so as to promote its products to the customer and to give daily updates about the launch of any new product in the market. The Company spends around 2% of its total sales volume in promotional campaigns.
All the TV advertisements of Ghadi detergent comes with a tagline, “ pehle istmaal karein phir bhiswas karein” which means before trusting the product you must use it. This encourages the customers to try the product at least once that ends up in repeated purchase of the product.
Ghari targets common man and especially the mediocre household wives. Due to this reason it does not endorse its products by any celebrities like its competitors.
Ghari also used train advertisements and this train campaign was first launched in the year 2008. The Ghari Detergent Express as it was named ran between Guwahati and Lucknow for a continuous period of 2 months. Later on, Swarna Jayanti Express train and Pushpak Express were also used for this advertisement campaign.
Apart from these train advertisements RSPL group also uses magic shows, road shows and exhibitions in small towns to promote its products. The magic shows have been a great success in cities like Jaipur, Kota, Indore, Kanour and Alwar.
Conclusion
After 25 years of its inception and seamless efforts the brand is successfully placed among the top players in the detergent Industry. Following the footsteps of Nirma and changing the business policies wherever required the Company managed to strategically place itself amongst the big names like Surf, Nirma and Wheel. The big opportunity came in the year 2012, when it managed to outplay big brand like Wheel from HUL group, just as Nirma outplayed the then market leader Surf.
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