CavinKare to launch Chik fairness cream

Chennai: He is at it again. CavinKare managing director C K Ranganathan, 41, who has no compunction in announcing that he was bad at arithmetic during his school days, is all set to make his competitors rework on their cost calculations.

CavinKare will soon launch another fairness cream brand, Chik Fairness Cream, targeting the mass segment. The new brand will be sold in two packs - 25 gm for Rs 10, and Rs 2-sachets. Similarly CavinKare will relaunch its single-use perfume packs priced at Rs 2.

What is interesting to note is CavinKare's pricing strategy. Except for its Chik shampoo and perfumes, the company has priced its other products - Fairever cream and Indica hair dye - slightly higher than its competitors. With a 13-per cent market share in the Rs 718-crore fairness cream market, Fairever is next only to the two-decade-old brand Fair and Lovely.

“We will offer a new value proposition to our target customers. The ingredients and the delivery points are different,“ says Ranganathan. In order to reinforce that the new offering is low priced, he is leveraging the Chik brand equity. Chik sachet shampoo is the No 2 brand in the shampoo segment with a 23-per cent market share. The shampoo is available at a price range of 0.50 paise per sachet. The company also has two other herbal hair-care products - Nyle shampoo and Meera powder.

“In six months we will become the largest shampoo player in the market,“ he claims. The company has six major brands - Fairever, Chik, Nyle, Meera, Indica and Spinz. While its shampoo brands (Chik and Nyle) contribute 50 per cent to the company's turnover, the Fairever cream contributes 30 per cent. The balance is from Spinz (deodorant, perfume) Indica hair dye and other products. “We plan to close this fiscal with a turnover of Rs 240 crore.“

About the relaunch of the single-use perfume, he says his company has changed the packaging, and the product is doing well in West Bengal. “We will go national soon. In marketing it is not the big fish that eats the smaller ones. It is the faster one that gets the food. I believe in the saying that if you do well what you have been doing, you will get what you always get. And if you want more than what you have been getting then it requires out-of-the-box thinking, apart from taking a calculated risk.“

To encourage innovative ideas and also to develop entrepreneurial instincts among his employees, Ranganathan hit upon a new idea. Any employee who conjures up an innovative marketing idea is sanctioned a budget to pursue his vision. “Even if one succeeds out of five such projects, it is advantageous.“ CavinKare has sanctioned five such projects.

Another bold step that Ranganathan is planning to take is in respect of labelling. CavinKare will soon publish the ingredients that go into its products. Even big MNCs operating in the FMCG segment do not give out these details, saying it is not mandatory to publish them.