Q] What is the current standing of JSW Paints in terms of market share, and the business objectives or marketing communications?
We have been a pan-India player since the last financial year. We focus on the whole of India and we have two legs of the business – industrial coatings, and decorative. Decorative is the larger part of the market, it’s what gets retailed, while industrial coatings are inclined towards B2B products and solutions. Our focus is to get into customer supply in each of the segments. This is our fourth year, or second year as a pan-India player. We hope to end this year somewhere between 3 to 3.5% of the market share and our aim is to keep gaining about one percentage share every year. There are certain markets that are ahead, and then there are markets that are a bit behind, but we want to push all of them to continuously gain share.
Q] We are almost at the end of the year with the festive season going on now. What has H1 been like for JSW Paints and the overall industry in terms of year-over-year growth and revenue?
As of H1, we continue to be the fastest-growing company. H1 is always affected by monsoon, and Q2 had fairly heavy rainfall in a lot of regions and it went into September as well, which muted demand compared to our expectations. It’s the second half when both the festival and the dry season prevail across the country. So, we’ve had a decent first half, though we expected retail to be more buoyant.
This year, the industry would probably be growing by only around 9-10%, because there have not been any price increases. This would mimic the volume growth too, but could be slightly higher in those regions where there is more consumption of value products and less of the premium products.
Q] Please share a few insights on collaborating with Ayushman Khurana and Alia Bhatt, and the overall creative and commercial outlook of the campaign.
We were clear that we do not want celebrities, but people who do meaningful things on screen, and we want to highlight things that consumers are unaware of. This was necessary because often when it comes to paints, consumers choose a brand and a colour, but don’t go beyond that, either because it’s too technical or complex.
In the process, they are not making an informed choice. Therefore, our entire communication is focused on bringing consumers to look beyond just the name of the paint and colour. We were thinking of making it interesting for consumers to question themselves and out came this character called Sawalia. It’s the inner conscience of a customer saying, ‘When I’m buying, can I at least find out more?’ That is our underlying strategy.
Q] Decorative paint experiences high consumption during the festive season. Are there any campaigns in the pipeline or any activity on the retail side at this point?
We just did our Pixa campaign, and have a whole lot of activation campaigns and initiatives on-ground to promote our products. We have visibility campaigns in the channel and in shops. The lead-up to Diwali typically has a larger level of consumption in the North and West markets where Diwali coincides with the New Year. We do believe paint is a low-involvement product, and therefore, around the time when people are thinking about paint and painting, which is slightly higher in this period of the festive season, we like to put across the right set of messages to them.
Q] The brand has been closely associated with cricket. Whether it was IPL or WPL. How does associating with Cricket help? What do you do differently to engage with consumers who overlap with the audience of cricket?
We do associate with several sporting leagues – IPL, WPL, football, kabaddi, and several others. It helps in getting visibility, and it has been useful, especially for an early-stage brand like JSW Paints. It goes with our overall philosophy of sports, not just cricket.
We have been associated with painting some of the stadiums when they were getting ready for the World Cup. So, those are ways in which we continue to have a strong link with cricket and sports. We are not a sponsor at the World Cup, but we have used the event for campaigns and media.
Q] What is the media blueprint for the brand?
Television is a very important medium, and most of our campaigns have a fairly heavy weight on the TV. But we have also used Digital and Print. Rational points are a bit more graphic when it is presented in Print, and Print still does have a certain reach and connection in India. Digital campaigns are mostly in a longer format, but it depends on the campaign as to how the media is defined.
Q] We’re closing on 2023, what is the market share you want to achieve by 2025?
We want to be at least 5% plus by 2025. We want to see how quickly we can reach a 10% share because I think that would make the brand stronger. We would ideally like to get to that kind of a number by FY28.
