Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste

A Brief Overview about Himalaya Drug Company

The Himalaya Drug Company is a pharmaceutical giant and had launched health
supplements, skin care products and pain ointments based on Ayurveda. Initially, Ayurvedic
Concepts were focused on the young urban professional population to establish brand
awareness. Thereafter, it was brought under the Himalaya brand for several categories of
soaps, shampoos, face washes and personal care products.
Himalaya advertised lesser than other FMCG manufacturers and brand associations were
nurtured by Word of Mouth. But to build market share in the highly competitive personal
health care market, it begun to advertise its face wash & toothpaste brands. Their lead
offering in toothpaste category was Himalaya Dental Cream, which was priced for premium
tier. It was available at several exclusive outlets and had shop-in-shop counters in modern
retail outlets.

An overview of the Oral Care and Toothpaste Market

FMCG was broadly split into three categories: Household Care, Personal Care and Food &
Beverages. FMCG market in India was projected to be around US$15-18 billion in 2010 and
was expected to grow to US$33 billion by 2015, driven largely by increase in dispensable
income and increasing attention to personal hygiene. In 2010, the oral care market in India
was around US$980 million. Growth trend of toothpastes over the past 3 years was relatively
slower than that of other key FMCG categories (11%) with even lower growth of the
toothpaste category at around 9%. The toothpaste market in India had a very low penetration
rate of 60%: Urban Penetration of 76% and Rural Penetration of 40%. Average consumption
of toothpaste in rural households was significantly lower than in urban households. Per capita
consumption of toothpaste in grams per year was 115g. Key brands in the Indian Oral Care
industry were Colgate-Palmolive (9 products) and Hindustan Unilever Limited (2 products)
sharing more than 75% of market between them.
Two main type of toothpastes were available: Gel and Paste. Further, three distinct price
categories were Economy. Popular and Premium. Main category segments as per benefits
offered were:
1. Freshness: 5 brands in this category led by HULs Close-Up

2. Herbal: 4 brands in the category led by Dabur Red

3. Overall health: 8 brands in this cluttered category
4. Niche: 4 brands in the category dominated by Colgate-Palmolive product

Brand Communication:
The focus of communication differed in accordance with the category of the product.
1. Freshness: Focus was on the emotional benefits of the product, targeting young urban
population
2. Herbal: Different brands chose differently between conveying emotional or functional
benefits
3. Overall health: Focus of communication was mainly on emotional front. Products were
projected as beneficial to whole family unit and children were used in almost all
communications
4. Niche: Focus was strictly on the functional benefit of the product in alleviating an
individuals teeth problems.

Consumer Insights:
64% of respondents brush once in a day 74% of all respondents never visit a dentist. 85% of
consumers have oral health problems and 67% of consumers change their toothpaste to solve
a problem. Category wise observations were as following:
1. Freshness: Only 28% consumers in this category were highinvolvement. 64% of the
consumers believed strongly in the benefits offered while 60% believed in the emotional
benefits on the segment. Only 20% of the consumers had low belief on both fronts. Many of
these consumers were Brand loyal.
2. Herbal: 40% of the consumers were Highly Involved with the product. Consumers were
mainly drawn to the functional benefits offered and 32% had low belief in benefits offered.
Around 46% of low involvement consumers had strong belief in brand.

3. Overall health: This category had low consumer involvement with only 32% of high
involvement consumers. Also, the number of strong cognitive or affective belief consumers
was low. 40% had low belief in the category and sales were mainly due to brand value as
46% of these had positive attitude towards brand.
4. Niche: This was high involvement category with 64% High involvement consumers. Most
of the consumers had high cognitive as well as affective belief in the benefits of the category.
Low involvement consumers were brand loyal as well.
In all, it can be inferred that toothpastes in general are low involvement products, however,
with categorisation some alteration may be introduced in this regard. Toothpastes require
communication to move consumers from the habitual buying behaviour to limited decision
making or complex decision making behaviour. This is done by freshness category or overall
oral health brands by encouraging some variety seeking behaviour through their adverts. On
the other hand problem solving products, and to a lesser range herbal toothpastes, try to
enforce complex decision making by stressing on the components and qualities of the
toothpastes.