Marico has occupied a place in the newer age hair care formats popular amongst the youth through a portfolio of post-wash hair-grooming products. These include Marico's Silk-n-Shine a post-wash conditioner, Parachute After Shower hair cream and hair gel.
These are still nascent segments in the hair grooming category in India and the company intends to establish its presence in these segments that could see an inflection in usage in the future and to play its role in category creation.
Silk n Shine has been promoted in a campaign promising “parlour like silky hair” and endorsed by celebrity actress Katrina Kaif. The brand has a share of 33% in the post-wash conditioner market (during the 12 months ended August 2007).
Parachute After Shower hair cream now commands a 41% share of the hair creams market (during the 12 months ended August 2007). The anti-dandruff variant is supported by a campaign driving the proposition of 24 x 7 dandruff free styling. Parachute After Shower gel launched in December 2006 has been receiving a good response.
The skin care solutions business of Kaya Skin Care Ltd. broke even during FY07 with a marginal profit before tax. Having established the model, Kaya now plans to move into the next phase of clinic expansion.
Kaya would open about 15 new clinics a year. Each of these, as is true currently, will be company owned and managed, there being no plans as of now to adopt a franchise model. In choosing locations, Kaya would try to saturate demand in existing cities (it is already present in 16 cities in India) and reach out to only a few new cities.
During Q2FY08, Kaya Skin Care added 2 clinics in India, one each in Mumbai and Pune. The company has been able to identify and tie up a few more properties for establishing new clinics.
One clinic was added in the UAE at AL AIN during the quarter, taking the total number of clinics in the Middle East to six. Kaya plans to open its first clinic in Saudi Arabia shortly.
During Q2 FY07-08 the Kaya Skin Lightening service was launched nationally with TV advertising support. The efficacy feedback on the service continues to be positive.
This quarter also saw the launch of Kaya Skin Renewal a range of peels which target specific skin needs of customers such as pimples, age-control, pigmentation, clarity and overall skin health.
Products form a share of about 15% of Kaya's revenues. In order to enhance this revenue stream, Kaya began prototyping the “shop-in-shop” model through kiosks at malls such as Lifestyle and Hyper City.
The response from this experiment with about 8 kiosks has been good and the company has now commenced a dialogue with other retail chains to establish and scale up this concept.
After a successful prototype in Q1FY08, Kaya Pigment Reducer was added to the basket of product offerings from Kaya and launched in Q2FY08. The company plans to continue to launch more new products in order to offer a “more complete” range.
marketing@alchempro.com
