Our marketing strategy has moved towards digital: Sushil Matey, Livpure

Livpure has allocated around Rs 3 crore for its Diwali campaign. The brand is known for its impactful campaigns like #CuttingPaani 2.0 which also became a mass movement.

In an interview with exchange4media, Sushil Matey, Director – Marketing, Livpure & CEO, Livpure Smart Homes, spoke about the new campaign, their media mix, marketing strategy and more.

Edited excerpts:

What festive campaigns is Livpure planning and what kind of investments will go into it? Also, how are you planning to market it?

Every year during festivals people come out and shop and for this year we have given an exchange offer where we are asking consumers to bring any appliance- it could be something like an iron or toaster or anything and get Rs 4,500 off on Livpure water purifier models. The Diwali Exchange Offer is available in different states.

The offer’s communication medium is essentially BTL - through banners or posters or gates we put up during Diwali at various locations. This campaign is not marketed on Television or Print. It has been gaining good traction as with Diwali round the corner people have begun to shop.

What are the investments or revenue for this campaign?

We are putting in approximately Rs 3 crore in the campaign and we expect that during this time we should get around 15-20% of our sales during this 2 to 2.5 months of the festive season.

How has the water purifier industry been doing in India, given the fact it’s already cluttered, and how is Livpure faring as a brand?

So the category is valued at approximately Rs 4,500 crore and the unorganized sector accounts for 50 per cent of this. The industry average in the last 5 years will be around 12 to 14 per cent CAGR. We are growing the fastest at almost 20 per cent and are the fastest-growing RO brand in the country. The penetration of RO in India is around 7 per cent overall pan India, rural would be approximately 3 per cent, urban 9 to 10 per cent. So the category still is severely underpenetrated if you compare this with an appliance like a television, refrigerator or washing machine. This is despite the fact that water is an issue in India and good water isn’t available everywhere. Unfortunately, people have families where there are 2 or 3 mobiles but they don’t have an RO in the house. So, the overall sensitivity towards having an RO is low.

How do you plan up a TVC for a brand like yours where you know brand loyalty plays a credible part in the long run?

As I mentioned the credibility and trust quotient comes pretty high when you have to buy a water purifier. Hence, Sachin Tendulkar’s association does its own part. And the communication on the TVC has to establish what we stand for as our tagline is ‘100% Sampoorna Suraksha’ which essentially means that it takes care of families health in its entirety and hence, the tagline fits in well. It sort of reinforces and enhances the imagery which you are trying to build and it gives you full protection because the whole idea of consuming a good RO water is to give you a sense that the water that you are consuming is absolutely safe and pure drinking water.

What are your marketing strategies?

Over the years, we have relied on traditional media which is television and to some extent, Print. But in the last 3 years, we have moved towards digital that captures our TG more. We can sort of crack the right TG through this medium. I can measure the impact, I can check the effectiveness. And we have realised that millennials and most of these youngsters and some close to 40-45 years are into this medium of communication where they consume news. We felt that moving on to this space is the right thing to do. We have done some good work in this space and have got some good traction as a brand in a couple of years.

Do we see Livpure extending into other verticals?

We are looking at the air conditioner category that we launched with Flipkart a few months back. We are getting into general trade now in the next couple of months and are getting into air coolers in a couple of months. We have lined up few launches in the next year.

How does your media mix look like?

Around 40 per cent of it is digital and the rest is split between ATL and BTL. We are a pretty digital-high sort of organisation.