With a plethora of brands under its umbrella, Mankind Pharma is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in our country. Some of the noted products are Gas-O Fast, Manforce, Prega News, AcneStar, etc.

Their social bio says “affordable medicines accessible to all”. We talk to Joy Chatterjee, General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Mankind Pharma about how they are marketing their products to attain the motto. He also speaks about the brand’s other products, campaigns strategies, and future plans.

Q) You collaborated with influencers for a few campaigns. What was the strategy behind it? How was the overall outcome?

Our objective is to diversify influencers’ activity by collaborating with different sets of regional influencers because we have noticed that it helps us in getting leverage and gives brands more consumer engagement and traction. In recent times, we have collaborated with different influencers depending on the subject we are catering to. Last month only, we launched an extensive digital campaign featuring celebrities and popular influencers like Harbhajan Singh, Harshvardhan Rane, Abhinav Bindra, and many more familiar faces to aware consumers of why ‘Health OK’ multivitamin and mineral tablets should be a crucial part of the diet. We also collaborated with renowned regional influencers in Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil industries with the aim to maintain diversity connect with the audience well. The campaign received an astonishing response from the audience which resulted in generating a lot of engagement from users.

For Gas-O-Fast, we have collaborated with personalities like Bhau Kadam, a Marathi Theatre and film actor, and Anand Mohan who is known for his contribution to Bhojpuri cinema. We also have roped in Saurabh Shukla, BiswanathBasu, and Brahmanandam as the brand ambassador for Gas-O-Fast.

Q) How does collaborating with celebrities for product launch and endorsements help a Pharma brand and especially Mankind?

The main purpose of associating with known faces/ Bollywood actors or actresses is to grab maximum eyeballs and helps brands to get required attention & hence impulses purchase consideration in the market.

We have roped in personalities that resonate with our product and brand, for Gas-O-Fast, we have roped in character actors like Saurabh Shukla, Biswanath Basu, and Brahmanandam as brand ambassadors to tap the respective regional market which has eventually helped us to establish a better brand connect at the regional level.

Q) Future plans for AcneStar Face wash and market strategies planned?

In 2021, AcneStar will be coming up with more engaging campaigns and marketing strategies to reach out to its target audience. We are taking a regional approach by roping in popular faces from the regional film and television industry that will help the brand to establish a direct connection with its audience.

Apart from this, we are planning ATL & BTL activities, while keeping our strong presence on popular digital platforms.

Q) What was your idea behind bringing a digestion product, Gas-O-Fast, to the market? And what makes it different from other antacids available as its primary ingredients?

The changing times and regular consumption of fast foods have led to various kinds of ailments in society today. Deep-fried foods, packaged foods, processed meats, cold foods, and drinking habits are some of the major factors that increase the risk of severe health ailments. In India, people are commonly facing issues related to digestion natural ingredients like Jeera, and Ajwain is the age-old remedies for indigestion and other stomach issues recommended by mothers and grandmothers which have always been effective. The presence of Svarjiksara and Nimbukamlam (an ayurvedic form of Sodium Bicarbonate) makes a perfect solution to get relief from acidity, indigestion, heartburn.

Ayurvedic Gas-O-Fast Active range introduced to get relief from acidity, gas, and indigestion with the goodness of natural Jeera and Ajwain. Resorting to Ayurvedic ingredients, neutralizes the acid on contact, thus giving instant relief from any symptom of gas, acidity, and indigestion. During the pandemic, people tend to binge eat a lot which leads to acidity and other stomach problems. Ayurvedic ingredients help in immediate respite in case of mildest discomfort in the stomach as it works in seconds to neutralize acidic irritants. The average sale of Gas-O-Fast sachets approximately counts over 1 Crore every month.

Q) It’s been 10 years since Prega News has become a go-to brand for home pregnancy kits. How has the market changed over the years?

Since 2007, we are growing strong at an unprecedented rate, which has made Prega News, a leading pregnancy detection kit in the market. Right from the beginning, Prega News recall has been on a rise. Thanks to the steady sales and a robust distribution network, we are easily accessible to all despite stiff competition and price rivalries. Over the years, we have effectively focused on our ATL and BTL advertising. We are quite prominent on TV, Digital, and OOH. We focus on 360* marketing of products. From the reach perspective- presently there is no active brand on TV in this category we sell around 1crore Pregnancy detection kits in a month. We are no.1 with 80% MS & the choice of millions of women & doctors.

Q) Talking about your products, how is the market in Tier 2 and 3?

Prega News is a convenient, economical, and easily accessible product for women. The product is known for its true and reliable results within few minutes, which can be easily be used at home. Consumers in Tier markets are also aware of the product, which led us to focus effectively on regional channels in order to drive awareness and constant hit on consumer mindset and Regional campaigns have been one of the most impactful ways to interact with people in their native language to establish a connection with them. In 2019, we ventured into the southern market and roped in popular faces like Kareena Kapoor and Priyamani simultaneously to capture both the northern and southern markets. Keeping up the trend, this year we have roped in Srabanti Chatterjee as the face of West Bengal on the occasion of International Women’s Day. With this collaboration, the brand aims to intensify its reach and drive visibility for PregaNews to reach masses in the eastern belt.

Other than this, in tier markets, people have started understanding the need& importance of using condoms. The Transition has happened from tier 1 cities (educated people) to smaller cities now. However, as per the Nielsen report the rural market is still lagging in terms of awareness but contributes to about 30% of the 1500 crore condom market in India.

Q) There are still some parts of the country that do not talk or discuss condoms. How is Mankind Pharma dealing with these parts? Tell us about your awareness programs.

With effective use of advertising mediums and campaigns, alongside much-loved Sunny Leone as our brand ambassador, we have successfully penetrated deeper into the pockets of tier 2 and tier 3 towns.

The general perception around condoms is that it reduces pleasure, this thought is common for both Urban & Rural populations, it is believed that condoms will hamper the overall experience and interrupt the momentum of the act, it can be messy & oily with latex smell. These were important learnings that came out in our recent consumer research.

Ever since we entered the market, our key purpose has been to promote the idea of enhanced pleasure & excitement of intimacy with the trust of safety. It has always been our endeavour to position Manforce as a promising choice that offers an experience our customers won’t ever forget. We primarily target All Adults SEC A, B &C (18-40 years old). Initially, the targeting was more skewed towards males but considering females as an important influencer, we started talking to this gender group as well.

Manforce is the king of flavors with 22 varieties in the portfolio and in terms of Volume the market is primarily dominated by Manforce with a 36.3% share, followed by KS (13.8%), Skore (9.5%), Moods (6.8%) & Durex (5.9%). We intend to increase our MS & reach the 50% mark by FY26, all our strategies are aligned in this direction. Manforce being a leading brand in the category has a larger responsibility in addressing relevant issues related to safe sex with an appeal to enthusiastic lovers to have protected sex. It is very much important to educate people about the benefits of using condoms while having sex, as it helps to protect them by having AIDS and other serious diseases and also it helps in controlling the population.

Q) Which is your most demanding product among the vast portfolio of Mankind Pharma? Tell us about your market distribution for the products?

Our OTC range of products range caters to different target audiences and all our brands are quite well recognized in the market with their unique proposition. Products like Manforce Condoms, Prega News, Unwanted 72 days are no.1 brands in the market and for Gas-O-Fast, Health OK, and AcneStar, we are aiming to capture a good percentage of market share.

Q) What are your plans for future expansion?

In near future, We are planning to launch more products under the sexual wellness category we are also planning to introduce some and interesting flavours for the youth which will be announced soon. We also have plans to expand our multivitamin portfolio under the Health OK umbrella and we will be launching a premium pack from Prega News.

In 2021, Gas-O-Fast has already geared up for the introduction of new flavours & SKUs, (which will be informed shortly)we have planned some exciting campaigns and marketing strategies, in order to engage with our consumers in an interesting manner. We will enrich our TV and digital campaigns that will increase our distribution base to cater to the maximum number of stores in India. We are also keen to increase brand tasting activity at the store level as Gas-O-Fast Jeera which tastes is best in the category.