Tupperware's success is all about camaraderie

Asha Gupta, general manager, Tupperware India has a mission: To see a Tupperware product in every Indian household. Gupta admits the task is difficult, but assures it is not impossible. "It's good to have a vision, provided it is backed by a solid plan. And, Tupperware has a solid business plan,” Gupta claims.

With 11 years of sales and marketing experience with multinational companies, both in India and abroad behind her, Gupta knows her onions rather well.

Gupta's relationship with Tupperware started in 1997, when she joined as a part of the start-up team, heading sales for the southern markets in India. After a successful two-year stint in South India, she was promoted as head of marketing for Tupperware India. During that assignment, she spearheaded product and promotional programmes that broadbased the sales force and consumer base and also established the Tupperware brand in India.

In an interview with Sumita Vaid Dixit and Aditya Chatterjee of agencyfaqs!, Gupta talks about the road ahead for Tupperware. Excerpts.

Edited Excerpts

To be honest, my first brush with direct selling was not that exciting. I wasn't really captivated by it. That was because I came from an FMCG background and was new to direct selling.

In fact, my first experience with direct selling came from Tupperware. When I joined the company in 1997, direct selling was still a nascent industry. There weren't too many players then. And by virtue of Tupperware's business model, I had direct access to consumers. Now, this was something that I did not have in an FMCG company as there are many operational layers between the marketing person and consumers.

I discovered direct selling with Tupperware allowed me to exist and function in a clutter-free environment. That experience was new to me and I have been thoroughly enjoying it.

What's equally important for me is the fact that Tupperware gave and continues to give an income earning opportunity to hundreds of women in India. And, when I see these ordinary women transform into first generation entrepreneurs, it gives me tremendous satisfaction as a professional.

The seven odd years, that I have spent here, have gone into realising dreams of many women. We have helped them build a career for themselves. It gives me immense pleasure to see that some women, who had joined the Tupperware family in 1997, are today distributors with a turnover of Rs 2-3 crore. Isn't that wonderful?

The total population of SEC A and SEC B in India is roughly between 250-300 million. And that is approximately the size of the population in the US. To me, that is the scale of opportunity in India. There's a huge potential for women entrepreneurs in India.

Even as our 'business women' are striving for excellence, our objective of making Tupperware a household brand is helped by the fact that today, the middle class population of the country has more disposable income. Because of the boom in the media industry, the proliferation of foreign and lifestyle brands in the country, the middle class consumer aspires for a value-driven life. Today, consumers are willing to spend as much as Rs 150 on a cinema ticket, especially at a time when the cinema industry is on the decline. They seek an experience and they are willing to pay a premium for it.

While that is the upside of the India's growing economy, the downside is the poor infrastructure. If the growth in the service industry is backed with sound infrastructure, India's economy would be a force to reckon with. And that's exactly what has happened in China; growth is supported with strong infrastructure there. Coming back to the issue of women entrepreneurs, yes, I strongly feel that there are many of them in India.

For us, the best reflection of this trend is our sales force. Our sales force team is 55,000 people strong who come from 40 cities. A cross-section of this population reveals sharp attitudinal differences in consumers from the South, West, East and North.

The consumers in the South are largely value-driven individuals. And, they are slow to change. But once they adopt a Tupperware product or any other product for that matter, it is for life. This attitude is in sharp contrast to the consumers in the North, who are willing to try. They are people of fads and fashion. Give them something new and they will hungrily lap it up.

In comparison, consumers from the West are open to trying out new things, but the commitment towards a certain brand comes only after they are assured of its quality and value. They are value and functionality driven consumers. Because of their problem-solving attitude, they are in fact, early adopters. Mumbai has a huge population of working women. And because of that women are open to business opportunities.

Working with a consumer in the East is a different experience. She is very price-conscious. But there is an interesting change taking place in that region. According a recent study done by AC Nielson, the Tupperware consumer is totally convinced about the product. But the non-Tupperware consumer is very happy using the Horlicks container and sees no reason to switch to Tupperware.

Now if you tell a Southern consumer that her food item could get spoilt, if she keeps using containers such as Horlicks bottles, she would listen and would be willing to experiment. The same isn't the case in the East.

In terms of the size of our market, North is the biggest. But West is not far behind. We have an equal sales force in the North and the West. But in terms of the penetration of the Tupperware brand, West is ahead of North.

Let me put it this way. We have products at the entry-level that are priced in a range that is within reach for the SEC C section. But we are not consciously attempting to make cheaper products to attract this segment.

But the interesting part is a substantial chunk of our sales come from the SEC B, and B-. And in fact, the same section forms a large part of our sales force.

For the SEC A women, Tupperware is not a means to an additional source of income. For them, these products are add-ons for their kitchen and they are happy with it. In comparison, for women in the SEC B, B-, Tupperware is an incentive for additional income. Such is the dedication that our distributors, who are at the top rung of the value chain at Tupperware, earn anywhere between Rs 50,000-1.5 lakh per month.

We regularly organise distributors meet. At such get-togethers, we discuss about how the money earned can be used sensibly. Because the reality is, the additional income is bound to impact their lifestyle. For example, many of our distributors are widely traveled now. Through Tupperware, many of these women have been to Dubai, Australia, Thailand; those stamps on their passport serve as a great motivator to perform better.

Plus, the philosophy at Tupperware has always been to recognise and appreciate work done by these women at every level – the lowest to the highest.

That praise showered on our workers is a great confidence booster. At home, their role is almost taken for granted. They do not get compliments everyday for the good food they make. But here at Tupperware, we have striven to recognise and encourage our sales force at every level. Which is why, if you would have ever interacted with these women, you would have noticed how charged they are all the time…

Some of my male friends joke that Tupperware is about liberation of women and empowerment. But that is not the case. Tupperware is not about an army of headstrong women. It is about camaraderie.

If I have to think of one difference between Tupperware and other direct selling companies, it will be Tupperware's constant recognition of people. Tupperware builds long term relationships. And this relationship building is intrinsically supported by the structure of the organisation.

Take my example. The years that I worked with Tupperware had led me to believe that wherever I went, I would come back to Tupperware. Such is the emotional pull.

Certainly, the degree of empowerment in working for a flatter and a smaller organisation is greater as compared to an FMCG company. There are limitations to one's scope of work in an FMCG company, but in the case of an organisation such as Tupperware, there is plenty of room for innovation.

Men view Tupperware as a pure business opportunity and there is no other incentive as far as they are concerned. They simply ask us to give them the business, and assure great sales. But this is not the objective at Tupperware. We want to empower women; bring a difference to their lives. Working for Tupperware is a means to achieve that. Men are only driven by material gains.

My mandate at Tupperware, in strictly commercial terms, is doubling the turnover from the current Rs 103 crore to Rs 206 crore in the next one year.

The target that we have set for ourselves is ambitious, but it is backed by a solid plan. The plan is to give additional money power to 15,000 people in the sales force. These women will be assured an income of Rs 3,000 or upwards, per month.

The way forward for us is to activate as many people as possible into the business, because the more the people, the closer we are to our targets.

Our new product strategy is going to help us in this direction. We are launching a higher value range of products. That, indeed, is going to be a great challenge for us as well. Innovative promotional activities will be backing up this vision. We have been very active on ground level activities. We have had promos at malls, focused on brand visibility through kiosks. So this is our path to the figure 206.

Above-the-line does not give us our bang for the buck. There is no way of measuring the effectiveness. This route for brand promotion does not work for direct selling companies. It's better to plough that money into activities that will ensure direct sales.

Tupperware has explored this method in the West. In India, however, the consumer is quite suspicious about the quality of the product. And the very reason we have these Tupperware parties is to allow people to feel, touch these products, which one cannot do through tele-shopping. There are many of these fly-by-night marketers who introduce cheap imitations of Tupperware. In that context, Tupperware parties help consumer see and gauge quality of Tupperware products.

Moreover, the sale clocked at a Tupperware party is the highest when compared to any other direct consumer programme.

In the metros, plastic is not an issue anymore. However, it still is an issue in satellite towns. You must understand that India has largely been a stainless steel storage market. The success of steel is its durability and strength.

In the smaller towns, yes, we have to educate them about the benefits of Tupperware vis-à-vis ordinary plastic containers. We have to make Tupperware generic to the category.

In the US too, in the initial years, we were faced with similar perception problems. Back then, women used ceramic containers to store their freshly baked cookies. But they turned soggy after a while. When the benefits of Tupperware were illustrated and assured that their cookies would remain fresh in Tupperware containers, they began to see reason.

Tupperware's easy to use, ergonomic and solution driven products are the pillars of the brand's strengths.

The basic difference in the business model of Tupperware and other direct selling companies is that while most of the others follow a multi-level-marketing (MLM) approach, Tupperware observes single-level-marketing (SLM). While these two are different models of conducting business, SLM is easier to understand and follow. It is a compensation-driven structure, where rewards are directly proportional to efforts put into procuring the business.

At the moment, we do not sell the same volumes as can be sold through retailing. But that does not mean we have not tinkered with the idea of retailing. When Tupperware began operations in the US, it was through the retail format. But it was not successful. There are were reasons for it.

First, the nature of the product itself. Tupperware is a touch-feel product. Therefore women needed to see it for themselves and then perhaps a purchase could happen. The second is, when Tupperware sits alongside other plastic products in retail showroom, it competes with poor quality products on price. Moreover, the USP of Tupperware gets lost in the maze of those fancy looking plastics.

By taking Tupperware away from this area and introducing it into the home party circuit, we created an exclusive market for ourselves. Here prospective consumers are allowed to feel the product. And we sell the product on the power of our demonstration.

In fact, now in global markets such as the US, France and others, Tupperware is generic to the category like Xerox.

Having said that, I do think in the long term, we would be able to sell volumes just like retailing. But right now, the immediate objective for us is to get at least one product of Tupperware in every household...

It will take time to realise this dream. But in the next 8-10 years, I see that happening.

Yes, we have to engineer innovative activities to get people to the home parties. The home party is the core where people congregate. The challenge is in getting more and more women to home parties. That we will do through cross-promotions; tying up with different brands...

Our marketing spends are typically between 15-18 per cent of our turnover. And as for pumping in more money is concerned, it will be entirely need-based.

At Tupperware, the premise of any brand promotional activity is profitability. Celebrity endorsements do not translate into sales for us. We know for a fact that Tarla Dalal, the famous cook book writer uses Tupperware. But that information will not be televised to prove the quality of our product. Rather, it will be conveyed to our sales force.

Recently we had invited Jassi, the protagonist of Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, to share her experience of using Tupperware with our sales force. So, all our activities are focused around pushing sales.

No , I do not see that happening. Our strategy is to leverage the Internet medium to promote our products. In the West, consumers use Internet to shop Tupperware products. That is because of high Internet penetration in these countries.

In India, however, Internet usage is still low. Moreover, the profile of an average Internet user is a young person, whereas the typical profile of a Tupperware user is a woman aged 28 and above.

Therefore, to set up an e-commerce base for Tupperware in India is not a viable proposition at the moment. But definitely India is a key market for Tupperware.