Emami targets consumers shifting to homegrown brands post Aatmanirbhar' campaign

New Delhi: Kolkata-based FMCG major Emami Ltd is seeking to cash in on Indian consumers slowly leaning towards homegrown brands following the government’s ‘Aatmanirbhar’ campaign for its newly launched home hygiene products besides tapping on increased awareness due to Swachh Bharat initiative, according to a senior company official.

The company, which had recently forayed into the home hygiene category currently dominated by multinationals such as RB and Unilever’s arm HUL, is looking to become a serious player in the segment with plans to introduce more products in future.

“In the last four-five years these categories started improving due to the Swachh Bharat campaign. Now with the Aatmanirbhar (Bharat), Indian consumers are slowly coming towards Indian brands. Till now these were dominated by MNCs. So, somewhere we have to start,” Emami Ltd Director Mohan Goenka told PTI.
Commenting on the company’s foray into the home hygiene segment, he said, “We had looked at this category even before the pandemic. We were hesitant to get into the category because it is a competitive category but two-three things really prompted us to take a plunge.”

Apart from the size of the category, he said after the coronavirus pandemic it has “almost doubled and in some cases even more than that”.

“Beyond that what happened after the Prime Minister’s Aatmanirbhar (Bharat) is that there was big renewed interest for big Indian companies from Indian consumers. Lots of Indian consumers are showing interest in Indian companies. We thought this is the right time to get into this category where it is dominated by multinational companies,” Goenka said.

The company has entered the home hygiene segment with products under ‘EMASOL’ range of products with disinfectant floor, toilet and bathroom cleaners along with ‘antibacterial’ dish wash gel and an all-purpose sanitiser products, the overall market size of which estimated to be around Rs 4,000 crore. “We have launched five new products. There are more to come now,” he said.

Expressing confidence of doing well in the new segment, he said, “We have a strong belief that hygiene is going to stay. Lots of categories will die down post the (COVID-19) vaccine. The basic hygiene products, they will always last. Once the consumer gets into the habit of hygiene they never go back.”

The current categories like “wipes, sanitisers these will get slowly eliminated after the vaccines” but the categories like dishwash, floor-clean these will always remain, he asserted.

Goenka further said, “Emami has been a niche player but this is a very large category. If we are successful in this, 3-4 per cent of the market is nothing. What we also believe is that there are local players and then the multinationals. In this category you can take a lot of (share) from local players based on our pricing and distribution. It is going to be interesting.”

In the first year of launch of Emasol, Goenka said the company is looking at a revenue of Rs 25 crore to Rs 30 crore and it has earmarked an advertising budget of Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore.