Emami Ltd has hired consultancy firm BCG to come up with plans to recharge Kesh King and BoroPlus brands.
The company believes the two brands, which are core to Emami’s personal care basket, need to be repositioned in the fast changing consumer mindset, especially the youth.
The hiring comes at a time Kesh King, acquired by Emami in 2015 for a lofty valuation of ₹1,651 crore, is struggling to grow in line with the category for the premium hair fall oil market.
In Q1, the Kesh King range showed a decline of 15 per cent in domestic sales.
In comparison, BoroPlus, which is a ₹550-crore brand, grew a meagre 4 per cent in the first quarter in the domestic market. The brand is inextricably intertwined with the roots of Emami Ltd, which completed 50 years, recently.
The founders of the Calcutta-based FMCG major, Radhyeshyam Agarwal and Radhyeshyam Goenka, bought 100-year-old Himani Ltd, which had a strong brand recall in the east, in 1978. BoroPlus antiseptic cream was launched in 1982 under the Himani umbrella. The brand Emami did not come to existence until 1995.
“Emami is expecting that with BCG on board, it would be able to revamp the two brands and get back to the growth trajectory, with an emphasis on the youth,” a source said.
While BoroPlus has transitioned from an antiseptic cream to a skincare solution provider, the antiseptic cream has a share of 67 per cent in the domestic market.
According to a latest research report published by Nuvama Institutional Equities, Emami wants the brand BoroPlus to extend to new geographies, channels and consumer segments.
In FY24, the BoroPlus range recorded a 3 per cent decline in domestic sales, despite growing 33 per cent in the January-March quarter compared with the same period of 2022-23.
The ₹350-crore Kesh King range, however, failed to arrest the decline in the fourth quarter as well, de-growing by 6 per cent for the full year and 9 per cent in Q4 in the domestic market.
Nuvama said many direct to consumer (D2C) brands have entered the hair fall oil segment as consumers are experimenting with new products. Kesh King is a more of a rural focus brand.
The appointment of BCG also comes at a time Emami is pivoting its strategy with a focus on D2C as well as premiumisation. The company has invested in many D2C focused start-ups, helped them grow and then took controlling stake in those entities. Last week, it raised stake to 100 per cent in the maker of male grooming brand The Man Company.
The D2C approach also fits well with the premiumisation strategy as Emami hopes to come out from the segment which only caters to the price-sensitive segment of the market. Emami reported revenues of ₹2,921.57 crore and profit after tax of ₹693.39 crore in FY24.
