"The water purifier market will be worth Rs 7800 cr in next 4 years"

In conversation with exchange4media, MV Praveen, Managing Director and CEO, MORF India shares growth plans for brand Kelvinator in the Indian market, marketing strategies and its direct selling model, among other things...

Excerpts:

How does the association with Electrolux take the Kelvinator Home Purifier brand positioning forward in India? 
Electrolux has around 55 brands in their portfolio. Some well-known Electrolux brands include Kelvinator, Electrolux by itself, Eureka and so on. It has a thriving business model, meaning it licenses brands to various partners and get a royalty payment. Out of its $18 million revenue, close to $3 million come from licensing. We are the custodians of Kelvinator brand for water purifier and air purifier in India and Sri Lanka.
 
Kelvinator is seen as a value for money brand. So all our positioning will happen only based on the general perception of the brand, build over a period of time. Kelvinator belongs to Electrolux is a known fact. So we are building Kelvinator as a standalone brand. It’s a 100-year-old brand known globally; it is present in 26 countries across the world. So we are using those credentials to build the brand. Kelvinator is only a well known refrigerator brand in India, but world over it’s a home appliance brand.

What is the role of media for brand Kelvinator? What is your marketing mix?
Since we don’t have a huge reach, opting for mass communication will never work at this point in time. So we are majorly concentrating on BTL activities, road shows, paper hoardings. Print and electronic media may not be a part of our media mix at least for the next six months. But we will be investing heavily on marketing collaterals and road shows. We spend close to six to seven per cent in tier II and tier III cities, whereas in tier I cities, we send around 10 per cent of our revenue thorough BTL activities. Until we build scale, we will be having area-specific campaigns.
  
How do you reach the target audience in presence of other brands that have been in India since years now? Who is your TG?
As of now, we are talking about the 100 years legacy of Kelvinator. It’s a global brand. We leverage on the association of Kelvinator as it’s a part of Electrolux and we bank on the product attributes. We have a product that has certain features and is unique and patented. We have a technology called micro shield, which other players doesn’t not have.

TG is based on the individual’s requirements. If somebody living in the outskirts of the city, where he has zero access to water supplied by the government, he has no choice but to depend on ground water and therefore, go for an RO. So, areas where people are dependent on ground water will be our primary target group. We will also be targeting people who are using canned water. Offline and UV purifiers will be targeted on people living within the city.

Do you think the Indian consumer is aware of the purification category? What are the initiatives taken by you to spread awareness?
Yes, they are aware of purification. As a process today, a customer understands that my water requires purification. That is why can water is a thriving business today. Customers may not be very brand driven in the packed industry, but they know my family needs pure water. Awareness is already here, we don’t need to do much to put in a word.

It’s just a few years since the brand has come to India; what are the challenges faced? According to you, how is the growth of this sector going to be?
Challenges are few but tough. There is a nostalgic connect with Kelvinator. Many people connect with the brand because they might have used a Kelvinator refrigerator at one point of time. So that’s a positive point. The negative side is Kelvinator has faded away from the market. That is the challenge we are facing. Direct selling method has given us a chance to stay on the minds of the customer. This is because we have the time to visit every doorstep and explain about our brand, which doesn’t happen in a shop.

Water purifier today is a Rs 1800 crore market and in the next four years, it could be a Rs 7800 crore market, as per an industry report. That’s why most of the large brands are entering this market. For example, you had Eureka Forbes and Kent earlier, but today HUL is in the market in a very big way. This is primarily because major brands see a major opportunity for growth in this space.

This is the reason we wanted a better brand in hand. We are basically a water engineering company and we did not want to have this thought diluted. That’s the time when Kelvinator approached us and it was a win-win situation.
 
What role does technology and new media play in building your brand? Is mobile a medium that will be leveraged by you?
We are very active in the SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) space. Once we build up our product rage, we will be very active on online portals, mobile and all social media websites.

What are the company’s future plans?
We want to become a Rs 500 crore company in the next five years time. Probably from an internal perspective, it’s a very big number for a Rs 10 crore company to aspire for. But if you look at the market after four years, it will be at least Rs 7500 crore. So what we are aiming for will be less than 10 per cent of the market share, which is a very reasonable number to look at.