Modi Revlon Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between the Umesh Modi Group and Mundipharma Group of Switzerland along with Revlon of US, has been bringing revolution in Indian beauty business. The brand has emphasised more on technology and quality skin care products with new experiments to fascinate consumers.
In an exclusive conversation with WI Bureau, Rajiv Kumar Bobal, Director – Sales and Marketing for MODI Revlon in India share his views about current status of Indian beauty business and shift in consumer buying behaviour towards Digital space. Here is the edited excerpt:
What is your observation and prediction about the future of Indian Beauty and Personal Care products' market? How startups, entrepreneurs, online retailers and suppliers can yield benefits out of it?
The Indian market is an ever evolving and will further keep going strong. Some of the observation of this industry is the fact that consumers are hungry for newer and better products always. Most importantly, they are now much evolved and ready to experiment and that is why it is more important to understand their needs and changing lifestyles. Once a brand or company understand this concept, they are able to be a part of a consumer’s life and can easily resonate with them as a brand.
The future of Indian Beauty and Personal Care products is Digital. India is welcoming digital in a big way and while the young guns are storming through it, the matured lot is catching up on it too. Therefore, if one needs to succeed, they have to be digitally well accepted too.
What kind of business opportunities you suggest to Indian entrepreneurs and online retailers in Indian market?
Nowadays, it is very important to understand the brands’ offering and the culture of the organisation. As a business associate, one must try to gel with them to create a win-win situation.
Define the top 10 latest trends of Indian Beauty & Personal Care market in the below mentioned categories:
a. Ayurveda
b. Kids Personal care products
c. Organic products
d. Global brands trading in India
The rise of natural, Ayurveda, organic discussions is to offer healthy products to the Indian market. Revlon has always been the front runner in offering safe and quality products to consumers, globally. Since its inception, safe and quality products have been two major foundation stones at Revlon. This is the precise reason why we constantly research upon our formulations and technologies, before launching any category or product. We make efforts towards the products and services that we offer to the consumer and understand the fact that we are dealing with an evolved customer who is well informed.
The need for natural, safe and quality products is also at a rise because of certain other factors like growing number of working women, busy lifestyles of people, health oriented approach and most importantly, the rising affluence of emerging markets. And, Revlon simplifies these through its sophisticate offering.
What are the key growth boosting factors of Revlon, which made the brand a most sought after cosmetics brand?
At Revlon, we stand for latest technology, high quality of products and most importantly – colours! We have been the first ones to offer colours in nail enamel in sync with the seasonal fashion. While being the first to distinguish gradations of shades with glamorous names, we had the widest range of shades, selling in cherries, reds, blues, yellows and pinks. We also introduced the concept of coordinating lips with nails. In 1977, we were the first in the world to distinctly define SPF (Sun Protection factor) on products. We also introduced ColorSilk, the first ammonia-free hair colour. We bought the ColorStay transfer proof lipstick concept as well as developed new technology for fast drying nail enamels. Our Top Speed nail enamel required only 60 seconds to dry.
These are some of the concepts introduced by us and have played a great role in making Revlon, what it is today. Our endeavour is to offer the Indian beauty market with the best of products that keeps one safe, healthy and inspired!
What's the annual turnover of Revlon in Indian cosmetics market? Where do you place the brand in the list of top 10 most popular cosmetics brands in India and why?
We ensure that it is never, just the numbers that keeps us motivated. We have just launched our campaign - ‘Love Is On’that celebrates love and is dedicated towards inspiring love and connecting with people around the world on an emotional level. Through this campaign, Revlon enforces Love as the most powerful and most positive emotion.
We have also brought to the Indian market a combination of products, service and satisfaction and are looking to open ‘Revlon Exclusive’ at premium locations of India. We recently celebrated the launch in Mall of India, Noida, Pacific Mall, Subhash Nagar, Sujana Mall, Hyderabad and more. We have always been the leaders and continue to maintain a top of mind recall value amongst our target group and this inspires us to be ‘An Aspirational Brand’ not just for the ones using Revlon but also to the ones who shall soon be a fan of Revlon offerings.
Share views over the changing dynamics of beauty and personal care products' market in India? The beauty and personal care market continued to register good growth in 2015. While the general consumer’s expenditure focused towards mass products, the urban consumers with higher disposable incomes, started to move towards more expensive brands. The premium product categories, needless to say, stayed high on demand. International players continued to dominate while domestic players constantly kept catching-up with the market play.
Talking about the changing dynamics of the beauty and personal care products’ market, natural, herbal and Ayurvedic products are the talked about category these days. This is definitely because of the rising promotional campaigns run by multiple companies’ altogether, with a new innovative message every time.
Another major change, seen in the dynamics of this market are online retailers. Online space is boomed with key e-commerce players who won a decent share in attracting consumer base and offering alluring deals. They rapidly grew in popularity and recorded strong sales growth as well.
While the brands are expanding offline by opening stores pan India, the online space is also becoming a market hub in itself. This has given smaller distributors and traders an opportunity to be visible and active through major online portals. This helps these smaller entities become a part of a greater business module through an already setup market place.
Increase in number of evolved consumers with strong understanding of products, brands and technologies have also changed the entire dynamism of the beauty and personal care market. They are not anymore looking for customer service and experience but are quality, innovation and improvisation hungry. All these factors will definitely fast track the entire working of the market and it will soon evolve into a much higher profitable market.
