We do not see anyone as our competition.

The Bangalore-based Himalaya Drug Company has undergone a total makeover. The maker of Liv 52, which entered the health, body, skin and hair care market with its brand Ayurvedic Concepts a couple of years back, is in the throes of a fresh round of repositioning. Will the decision to shift from the chemist-doctor-oriented market and go directly to the consumer pay off? Not to forget there's stiff competition from the homegrown Zandus and Daburs to MNC heavyweights like Hindustan Lever and Procter & Gamble. But president & CEO Ravi Prasad isn't worried. "The mature consumer looks beyond ads to the quality of the product," he told Alokananda Chakraborty. In this interview to agencyfaqs!, he talks about why the company decided to consolidate all its products under the Himalaya brand, and how he hopes to make the brand synonymous with herbal healthcare.

Edited Excerpts

If we go back in history, the Himalaya Drug Company has been in the forefront of manufacturing and marketing scientifically researched and validated ayurvedic formulations since 1930. Consumers across the globe have expressed an extremely high degree of satisfaction with our products and they want to know what other products we market. It is to serve this felt need of our consumers that we are creating a common identity across the globe. We hope to achieve this by bringing all our products under a single corporate brand - Himalaya.

At the end of the day, the reason for business is the consumer. As long as the business was under disparate brand names it ended up confusing the consumers. With the unification of all the products under one umbrella we thought it would be far easier for the consumer to associate with the brand more readily. We are trying to ensure that when the consumer sees the Himalaya logo they are able to equate us with a company that makes healthcare products that is international class and is of a particular quality.

I do agree with you that Liv 52 and Ayurvedic Concepts are household names in India, whereas consumer associations with Himalaya are not so strong. This is one of the primary reasons why we have taken the effort to consolidate all our products under a common identity - Himalaya. Over the years, we see Himalaya being the global standard when it comes to herbal healthcare.

The other important fact is that unlike in India, all the healthcare and personal care products of the company are sold under the Himalaya brand name in the markets of United Arab Emirates, West Asia and South America. Now if we unify the brand under a single name then the consumer also feels that the shampoo she is buying in India is the same as the one she gets, say, in Europe. She would immediately know there is no difference in terms of quality or anything else.

Himalaya is a 71-year-old company; so you cannot say that we have not focused on India. Brands like Liv 52 have been among the top pharma brands for many years now. What you see now is the beginning of the effort to build the brand Himalaya globally. Our business globally is growing faster than ever before. The focus is not restricted to just India, but is a concerted worldwide effort.

Once the decision to create a common identity across the globe was arrived at - and we were very clear that the identity would be Himalaya - we decided to start work on it immediately. However, we are aware of the strengths of Ayurvedic Concepts and so we have decided that in the interim, Ayurvedic Concepts will feature as a sub-brand of Himalaya. This was done to provide a sense of continuity to the existing consumer base of Ayurvedic Concepts. As we see it, Dadima is still very much a part of our communication for the products under the erstwhile Ayurvedic Concepts range. As a matter of fact, she has been the link in the shift from Ayurvedic Concepts to Himalaya. She had a very specific role to play in the life of the brand and she has served that purpose very well. However, Dadima's role in our advertising will be less and less over time, as Himalaya starts standing on its own feet.

The brand is not viewed as being fuddy-duddy at all. In fact, research after research has shown both the brand and Dadima are perceived by our consumers as very contemporary. If you were to look at the basic premise of Dadima, you will realise her role was to represent the age-old traditions of Ayurveda in the most contemporised manner. So she had a very pleasant demeanour, she spoke good English, she had the right diction. She may have been old in terms of her age, but she the message she was delivering was relevant at all of us. In short, she combined what was best in the old and the new.

And the fact is, this ad really helped in creating a huge amount of recall for the brand. The sales figures are proof that the message really has gone down well with the target audience. The sales of Ayurvedic Concepts jumped 400 per cent between 1999 and now - to stand at Rs 350 crore currently.

Yes, we agree that our major thrust has been in taking ayurveda and herbal healthcare from being seen as an alternative healthcare system to a complementary healthcare system. That has meant conscious efforts and investments in cutting edge research and development. All that is paying dividends now. For reasons of confidentiality, I cannot elaborate on our products under development, but you will see it for yourself in the coming months and years. But all of it will be based on the goodness of Ayurveda.

Himalaya is a brand that offers complete herbal healthcare. Therefore, we do not see ourselves targeting any specific consumer group. We see Himalaya as a brand for the complete family.

Let me put it this way. We do not see anyone as our competition since Himalaya is the only brand that offers complete health and personal care solutions to its consumers. At the same time we welcome the entry of other players in the area of herbal healthcare, as they will help in increasing the general level of awareness.

While we have used television extensively, it was not at the exclusion of all other media vehicles. Right from the launch of the brand, magazines have been an important part of our media plan. For the time being, we will continue to use TV and magazines as the main media vehicles, supplemented from time to time by outdoor efforts. In certain markets, where it is possible, we will look at radio too.

Currently, we are spending about 20 per cent of our revenues on communication-related efforts and I don't see any major change happening in the near future. The skew of our media spend will depend on the particular product we are trying to promote through a particular ad or campaign. If it's a product which is somewhat new in the market for which you need to talk at some length - and describe what it is all about, how it works etc, I think print is the best way to do it. But, for a product, where you need to reach out to a larger audience, where not much has to be described, then I guess, TV works better. What we are looking at in our advertising is a mix of both print and TV and depending on what the goal is we will decide on the media mix.

The main area of focus for the future would be to build the Himalaya brand and make it a household name for herbal healthcare. India, of course, is a key market, but as I said before, we are looking to position Himalaya as the global standard for herbal healthcare.