Kansai Nerolac urges people to ‘Paint the change’ they wish to see

Kansai Nerolac Paints has launched a new initiative ‘Paint the Change’, to encourage consumers to donate unused or leftover paints. This collected paint would be recycled and used to paint structures across the country that are in need of beautification and renovation. The initiative will be promoted thorough social media and below the line activities in different cities through the company’s 15,000 dealers, painters and contractors.

A dedicated facebook page would allow customers to upload photographs of the sites that are in a dire need of a revamp. The top 25 sites would be shortlisted by Nerolac, out of which the one receiving the maximum likes and touching maximum lives, would undergo the makeover.

Campaign India caught up with H M Bharuka, managing director, Kansai Nerolac Paints, to find out more about the ‘change’, market share and the brand journey so far.

Campaign India: What are the thoughts behind this initiative?

HM Bharuka: In this industry, everyone is talking about colours. We felt that there was a huge gap which nobody was addressing so we took the healthy home positioning. Therefore, we introduced healthy paints and created campaigns to take it to the people. When we created the low VOC (volatile organic compounds) campaign, we realised that people were yet unaware about VOC and how low VOC would help. The realisation is still very low. So we decided to have a social campaign to use leftover paints. We thought that through social cause, we will be able to educate people. We hope the younger audience can sit up and notice what we are doing and take this forward.

Campaign India: Could you comment on the journey undertaken so far in terms of competition?

HM Bharuka: Before we talk of market share we need to speak about mind share. And even before that there is a lot of work that needs to be done. From our perspective, if you look at the last five years, we are now a well established brand. We are introducing first-of-its-kind products in the Indian markets. Earlier, Nerolac was not known in the decorative paints segment. The branding has changed from Goodlass Nerolac to Kansai Nerolac . We have invested close to Rs 100 crores in IT to strengthen our distribution. Thus, we are able to tap the market, understand consumer needs and service them accordingly. We have put the back end in place and now we are going for branding and trying to educate the consumer and get their mind share. Once we get this, the market share will automatically follow.

Campaign India: What are the future plans of Kansai Nerolac?

HM Bharuka: Our plan is with India, if India is expanding then we will continue to grow. As far as we are concerned, we are not going to acquire any companies outside India. We are part of Kansai, which is already in 50 countries. Nerolac’s job is to concentrate on India and grow the market. Nerolac’s market share is low and we would like to expand it. And from that perspective this is the campaign that we have launched, we are using celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan and creating Eco friendly products. All this will help us achieve our targets.

Q&A with Anuj Jain, director - marketing and sales (decorative), Kansai Nerolac Paints

Campaign India: What is the market share of Kansai Nerolac as of today?

Anuj Jain: Our market share is 20 per cent of the industrial and decorative paints industry. Therefore, in totality we stand at number two, but in the decorative paints segment we are at number three and our market share is 12 per cent.
Campaign India: What has been the digital strategy adopted at Kansai Nerolac?
Anuj Jain: Kansai Nerolac has the biggest fan base on Facebook  in the industry. We have a fan base of 3,75,000 people. We have introduced this initiative on Facebook and will use Twitter as well. There is a promotional campaign through our digital platform. Our digital spends are yet low. We spend about 2 to 3 per cent of our marketing budget on digital but we will take it higher in the future.

Campaign India: Could you comment on the change in Kansai Nerolac’s positioning in the decorative paints segment?

Anuj Jain: We have taken a very different positioning in this segment as our competitions are talking about beautification of colours but we have taken a stand on Eco-friendly and healthy paints.

Everyone spoke about colour and beauty ignoring the protection value of paints. People spend nearly 70 per cent of their time in their homes. That is why we decided to concentrate on lead-free paints keeping health as a primary issue. If the paint is not done properly, it can lead to unhealthy kind of situations. We are doing a lot of research in this area and we believe in it and hence are taking it forward. On the product front, we have taken the positioning of healthy paints and thus introduced a new product called Nerolac Impressions Eco Clean.

Campaign India: What RoI do you expect from this initiative?

Anuj Jain: We do not calculate RoI from such initiatives. As a company, we wanted to bring some change so we worked in that direction of creating healthier paints. We believe that there are certain international benchmarks which somewhere somebody should take initiative to bring to the country and that is what we are doing.