Grooming the personal care category

What the retailers said…

'Create excitement to create migration'  

Ponnu Subramanian, Sr Vice President - B&M (Foods) & SCM, Max Hypermarket India Pvt. Ltd.

There are different kind of shoppers seen when comes to personal care and we can sort them in different buckets such as mentioned below:

a) Brand loyal shoppers
b) Shopper seeking for specific need/ concern, say for acne, dry skin, dandruff, hair lose etc
c) Shopper willing to migrate to new products/ new trails based on good offers on shelves,  brand-specific beauty advisor approaching them and understanding their type of requirement & thus providing details of benefits of the products
d) Shoppers who haven't planned for any buy but who would fall for a product due to attractive packaging etc.

Today there are several products showcased to shoppers with different innovative choices and attractive packs by the brands. Trial packs may become the initial pick from the shoppers and lead to shopper interaction, which already most of the brands are tabbing.  The tested and tried method of demo still proves to be effective. Beautician counseling is also increasing off late.

Commercial advertisements strongly impact on shoppers, followed by brand ambassadors. So brands can initiate strong merchandising at stores which extends the TVC and creates recall as shoppers pass through the aisles. Free trail packs distribution near the category, inviting brand ambassadors to stores to create excitement to the shoppers and therefore creating possibilities of picking/ migrating also work well.

'Treaties with brands on number of skus a must'

Lalit Agarwal, CMD-V Mart

There is an increase in the spending in the personal care category and as far as aspirations are concerned we have noticed in the last two years shoppers don't mind paying premium price for a personal care product. It is because these products are applied on skin and are used for enhancing looks, aspirational shoppers are keen to buy personal care products at premium price as it makes them feel better and look better. We are present dominantly in tier two and tier three cities and we get to see that shoppers are using items such as nail creams, soaps  and products which are highly premium. So personal care products are in high demand.

When multinational companies or even smaller companies launch their brands, they are promoting them well - proper care is taken to give their brands maximum visibility by positioning them in front of gondola, using signage, experimenting with samplings and activations where customer engagement is involved. Today shoppers are smarter and they expect to be treated differently and hence they like it when a brand takes an initiative to engage and communicate with them.

MNCs and international brands change their displays often, but local brands do not change their display frequently. We both work together to ensure that the shopper is happy and satisfied after their shopping trip.

On our part, we have a specified treaty with brands wherein we specify the number of SKUs that can be put up. The identity of the store needs to be maintained. There needs to be a treaty where brands are allowed a specified number of SKUS which are necessary and such treaties are important for the retailers to maintain their stores.

There is immense scope in personal care category and with strong competition it is making the shopper confused and spoilt for choice. Good packaging, clear communication, low prices and strong marketing strategies will help brands tap the shopper in this competitive segment. As the competition gets fierce, the shopper benefits with a wide range of choices to choose from an array of products.

'Innovate to connect product and consumer'

Darshana Shah, Senior Vice President - Marketing & Visual Merchandising, HyperCity Retail

Shoppers today have access to a wide variety and range of products. They are, therefore, drawn to only those stores that offer them the best deals and retailers are getting increasingly competitive and creative in making special offers, especially when it comes to personal care products. Consumers today aim at "living better for less” and consumer expectations from personal care products is to maintain and/ or improve their lifestyle on a tighter budgets. A multi benefit product is the new buzz in some of the Skin Care categories (for e.g. Skin / Fairness Creams, Cleansing regime product etc). Men's grooming may see a new trend from current prototype range to an exhaustive range covering from face care to personal wash to men's accessories.

Also, brands today are increasingly participating in customer engagement activities for instant customer feedback. This also gives them sampling opportunities that help build awareness about the product. Brands today need a face to increase loyalty and many are going in for celebrity endorsements and store visits, testimonial ads, celebrity fashion show cum product unveiling events at the retail store. In-store activations to ensure consumer trials, even for products like shampoos, hair conditioners and face masks, have proved to be successful.
At HyperCITY we ensure that the freshness is ensured in terms of branding displays as well as promotional offers on products. We keep tinkering with display options and ensure that the whole look is changed at least every two months. New launch campaigns at Hypercity stores typically last for only 1 or 2 months. Beyond this period, we try out newer visibility options for maintaining freshness.

With every new introduction, the brands expect the plano-gram to get modified/tweaked. However, maintaining our consumer centric and CDT based approach we keep it to minimum and avoid radical changes in a short period of time unless absolutely required. However, Joint Business Plans with select business partners to drive category growth gives us an opportunity to benefit from global consumer learning and implement proven strategies on the shelf (for e.g. regime shelving in hair care, up-trading and upsizing of Fame Care category etc).

Any innovation that can connect the product with the consumer and increase shopper engagement is encouraged at HyperCITY. We have designated areas to accommodate kiosks for such activations and consumer interactions in all our stores which facilitate suppliers to demonstrate product USPs with one on one interaction. We also encourage niche, new and upcoming categories (e.g. Skin Anti Ageing, Sensitive segment in Oral Care etc) wherein product knowledge and experience is shared with consumers and this can give'connected shopper' a new meaning. Keeping in mind the variety in this category and the number of product launches, opportunity to innovate is limitless. Starting from primary bay brandings like primary aisle top spaces, 3 D floor graphics, floor carpet, cross selling units etc. to larger-than-life innovative options like mock product creations, product blow ups etc., all can be planned keeping in mind the requirement of the brand & the products that are to be promoted.

Apart from all this, various online activities on social websites can be looked at in which both the in store and online campaigns can be planned. We also engage in a lot of cross advertising. For example in the case of the Oral B launch, we have placed parasites at various touch points in the stores for cross selling. We have placed them at start & end of Chocolate aisles, Beverages, cereals etc. with the same thought.
Perspectives from retail solution providers … 

'Divert more budgets for retail'

Mahesh Shinde, Director, DMS Retail Works Pvt Ltd.

If you take a look at the this year's launches and market trend, you will see that the major companies having personal care portfolio have increased their space with more thrust on Men's range and premium range products. ITC, Garnier, HUL, Nivea, PnG have all pushed the Men's range and premium products on the skin, anti-wrikle, anti ageing front. So through and through there has been an expansion in the offering from the brands side to more specific needs in this category.  This also implies increase in the retail presence of the same and thereby business for our industry. About 15 per cent of our turnover comes from
this category. We have majorly worked with only two clients in this segment, L'Oreal - Professional division and Marico and that to primarily in the MT segment. Within our scope of work, we have created some eye catching displays to cater to the premium range and for Marico we have done some value adds such as a mirror, rotating different hair styles communication and tester unit to push sales.  Interesting displays, inviting tester units and creative communication elements have been used till date to differentiate at retail but Innovation I would say is still at large.

These brands are the biggies in the industry and they truly justify a 360 degree approach in pushing their brand and hence retail is no exclusion. The retail visibility is definitely worked upon with due justice to back up their ATL. In my opinion, this category not being an impulse purchase one, needs to divert a higher percentage of their budgets in doing more at retail and in innovation.
ATL and celebrity endorsements eat up most of their budgets and retail visibility is given a step treatment on time allotted for designing and innovation.

'Sustainability is big'

Raagesh Bhatia, Director, REX Enterprises 

Personal care has always been at the forefront in merchandising and in-store activities. Brands are identifying the personality they with wish to be and are boldly capturing that space through colour, form and imagery. The objective for any campaign now has moved from merely being visually appealing to creating a spectacle that imprints itself in the minds of consumers.

In the last three years we have seen the market reinventing itself to appeal to an evolved shopper. We have actively worked with leading retail chains to revamp their  Health and Beauty (HABA) sections. We have done a very exciting category management solution where we created an entire Skin care Zone in the primary bay itself.

Non traditional formats such as salons, chemists, baby and beauty stores are becoming increasingly important in the merchandising mix and we are focussing our resources to be able to activate them more effectively. Permanent Shelf in Shelf assets - Plug Ins are becoming widespread across such formats and we have had to double our bandwidth in the last year to accommodate this.

Currently the personal care space is absolutely buzzing with activity and would constitute the highest share of visibility in any retail space.

Most brands have MT campaigns that engage with the consumer at multiple touch points in the store effectively using all possible spaces - primary bay, secondary stocking (FSUs, bins) and high impact zones like checkout counters and power aisles. However, in GT, very few brands have manage to effectively capture the 3 focus zones shopfront, cash counter and shelf. Brands I think want to be seen at the Hypercity and H&G etc. - which is good for the luxury brands.. but mass brands lose opportunities to grow by neglecting the traditional channels.

As for challenges, this space is extremely crowded both by several national brands in every category and local brands adding to the clutter. The challenge, besides creating differentiation through design, also lies in negotiating space at retail and holding on to it - with the amount of competitive activity it is easy for a retail asset to get displaced by a competitor. We always encourage partnership with the retailer with a long term TOT - this proves to be most effective especially for large multi brand companies. Further, it allows the brand to invest in quality assets that can be amortized over multiple financial years and provides a secure platform for the brand at retail.

More brands are also leaning towards catman solutions for modern trade and customised shelf in shelf ( plug ins) for General trade to ensure longer life in store.

In terms of our own turnover, approximately 30% comes from this category and brands are asking us to put more and more thought into design. We are moving beyond a beautiful form and actually exploring each fixture in detail not only from the perspective of a shopper, but also of a retailer, logistics and most importantly of a merchandiser. Extensive pilots are carried out before large campaigns and design element even extends into packaging of the retail asset for robustness and ease of implementation to ensure speed to market. This is what differentiates our products from most other agencies.

FMCG companies are becoming more and more socially responsible and are buying only from suppliers who clear their stringent human and safety audits. Sustainability is another buzzword at a corporate level and we are being asked to develop recylable, reusable assets using non toxic materials. We have reduced our PVC usage by 80% this year, more than 50% of the assets we have created are recladdable.

In box

Thomas Joseph, Director, Fourth Dimension India Pvt Ltd, shares his insights as a retail solution provider with Point Of Purchase on what really works in the Personal Care category. Read on...

 'Conviction of quality brings belief in the brand'

What trend do you notice among cosmetics brands when it comes to merchandising and other inStore activities? What kind of innovations and value-adds have you offered? Could you share some examples?

With India having maximum percentage of youth compared to other countries, decent disposable income & affordability; people are experiment more with brands. In the personal care category, being of intimate use,  conviction of quality is what brings in belief in the brand. The challenge for brand marketers is to find the right ways and means of reaching the consumer and communicating the uniqueness of the brand. Store has been a big medium to do this job where a consumer can really feel the product, test it and understand the complete USP of the product.  A large part of these products is focussed on women .There are major developments in the Store environment in this category and  has been treated unlike other categories.

Investment in the category is much higher compared to any other FMCG category;, lot of time is spent on premium hardware to arrive at the right mix of design, aesthetics, lighting etc to attract the consumer .

The challenge for any in-store solution provider is to understand the category and brand in depth as the category is getting filled with newer and newer brands and variants every day. But Indian stores are still in the process of upgrading their internal interiors to create the best look and experience. SO the challenge is also to customize solutions across different format retail chains keeping the same look and feel of the brand

Fourth Dimension has been working with various Personal Care brands and always innovating to bring in a better experience to the customer. We have been working with premium display solutions both for MT and GT and within GT working at different store formats understanding the store environment and providing solution without compromising on the brand Image. Extensive work has been done for Olay, Gillette, Nutrogena, Parachute Advance, Parachute Body lotion, Pantene , Nexcare, Renew  to name a few.

Do you think that these brands are doing enough at retail? What else do you think they ought to do or can do?

While a lot is being done in bringing in international designs and creating an atmosphere akin to the west/European market in this category, I personally feel a lot more can be done in customer education:

The growing middle class with more and more expendable income is constantly striving to upgrade to the next segment. While this first time users of many products could probably stop migrating from brand to brand if only there is more education of the product. This has to be from a category management perspective and not from a sales perspective. Whatever information today one is bombarded with is: why Product A is better than Product B, Product A being the promoter brand, probably the reason for an overdose of personal product experts/columns in lifestyle magazines.

Brands and Stores have to work together to arrive at right solutions to reach the consumer, there are challenges in India in convincing the store in accepting the right execution. But the trend is changing and there is vast acceptance by the retailer.

International exclusive Brands are raising the bar when it comes to quality and design. In many cases whole structures are imported.

What are the  challenges you face when it comes to carrying out the brief in the cosmetics segment in the GT and MT space?

Understanding what works for brand, comes purely from being associated with the brand and more importantly understanding the store environment. The diversity across geographies in India itself makes this a daunting task. Aesthetics alone does not work. The store format, the retailer beliefs and business sense, scalability, ability to confirm across formats and sub formats of stores, juxtaposed with product characteristics is what delivers the desired result. The challenge of conforming to the design thought of the store format and at the same time having commonality of design across stores/formats is another challenge from a design solution perspective. Most assets being high value, proper execution, sustained maintenance and care of these assets demands end to end agencies are a must.  FDIPL has worked extensively with the Personal care brands across the country and has today built up a thorough understanding of the mechanics of this segment. With our expertise and data bank on stores, we have today to a large extent bridged the gap of brand needs and store needs. This has helped in a large way in reducing iteration and hence time and cost to deliver an acceptable solution to brand and store.