Alia Bhatt is the right fit because she believes in our endeavours: Somasree Bose Awasthi

In India, purpose-driven brands have always had the power to make inroads into not only people's hearts but also new markets, creating a strong brand positioning for themselves. Nihar Natural’s Shanti Amla Hair Oil has been running its CSR activity for more than 15 years with education as its focus area.

In order to grow the initiative, the brand roped in Vidya Balan 13 years ago, who became inextricably associated with the brand. Today, the mantle passes on to Alia Bhatt, who will be the new brand ambassador for Nihar Shanti Amla Hair Oil. Bhatt whose appeal cuts across cohorts from millennials to genZs has a rather tall task, matching the lush legacy left behind by Balan.

According to Somasree Bose Awasthi, Chief Marketing Officer at Marico Limited, that Balan has elevated the brand Nihar Shanti Amla and Bhatt will surely take it to the next level. "The brand has this brand positioning because of Vidya Balan.  The way she has pulled the brand on her shoulders has been amazing and where it stands today, is because of her 13 years given to the brand. So that we can take the brand to the next level with someone who is a youth icon as our main target audience is the youth and hence we have taken Alia Bhatt. She will be our next brand ambassador, we hope she takes the brand to the next level from where Vidya Balan has left," she said.

While there are many contemporaries of Bhatt, why is she the right fit? Awasthi says that they wanted someone who equally believes in the brand's endeavours and is also matching its steps, doing something on similar lines as the brand.

“The biggest reason for us was that the celebrity should also believe in that cause, and recently Bhatt has been supporting the cause of education for children. That is where it struck us while selecting the next ambassador, it really should be someone who passionately believes in, what Nihar believes in. It’s a brand with a purpose, the stature that the brand has reached today is because of its purpose and the brand ambassador that we have chosen at that time 13 years back, to drive that purpose. Hence today we also add somebody who will be able to fit in those shoes and take it to the next level.”

The brand is more prevalent in the eastern Indian regions where Balan struck a chord, cutting through different cohorts and attracting East-Indian audiences. Awasthi says that the East-Indian region is a region where Hindi content work tremendously for the audiences, 40 to 50% of reach comes from Hindi GEC channels. Awasthi is confident that Bhatt will be able to ride the communication in the eastern regions along with cutting through the different cohorts of the country. 

The brand's recent campaign, conceputalised by WPP, shows Bhatt playing the role of a teacher surrounded by school children who are mesmerised by her hair. The overarching message is that the Nihar Naturals Amla Hair Oil supports children's education, which is evident in the tagline when Bhatt says "Baal Badhenge” and the children say, “Bachche Padhenge”. The brand pledges 5% of the profits to children's education. 

“One of the things that we really understood when we tested out from the consumers were they love the quality of the product but they also love the fact that by purchasing this product. They are also contributing to society in their own small way, so the brand, in a way enables them to do something and give back something to the society," Awasthi said. “So hence, it's great to do something new, but then it's also great to continue something that's really working and doing something good to the society."

Sharing the impact of the cause, Awasthi said, “Last year, we have been able to enroll about 2.5L teachers and more than 10L students into the digital modules. We keep track of the progress with the help of our NGO partners Leap For Word and main the dashboard to record the data.” Awasrthi also said that they use WhatsApp as a way to share these modules with the teachers.

The media mix for the campaign is 70% on TV and the rest 30% on digital which includes, social media, influencer marketing, OTT ad placement, etc. Awasthi said, “TV is an important medium for us, having said that digital as a medium, our spending has gone up.” She also said that the Bimaru regions (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh) is a media dark however, due to Covid, these regions have become digital-savvy. So in order to reach these cohorts, the brand uses digital routes. Awasthi also shared that bulk of the business comes from general trades which is somewhere around 90%. E-commerce contributes around 10% or less. 

When asked about influencer marketing, Awasthi said that they mostly rely on micro-influencers as they already have a mega-celebrity that comes with a huge fan following. “What we feel, is  that especially for this community it is the micro influences that play a huge role and majorly we really capitalize on them.”

Talking about the future marketing pipeline, “At the moment we are looking forward to capitalizing on the new ambassador that has come in. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of potential can we drive by activating 360-degree marketing strategies that we have put in place as far as the second TVC is concerned, we'll be releasing it soon.”