The company is preparing a ready retail-base in anticipation of expanding the existing range of products in skin, hair and personal care. Says the CavinKare managing director C K Ranganathan: ``We plan to grow 100 per cent in the next two years. And by March 2001, we will have at least 25 per cent market share in every segment we are in.''

Its Fairever brand has already notched a 10 per cent marketshare within a year-and-a-half of its launch. This was in the face of a competitor like HLL's Fair & Lovely.

The company will shortly be introducing a Nyle herbalmoisturising lotion to hit the market before the winter season. It is to be followed by a slew of skin-care products including a face-wash, a face-mask, and a bleach by next year.

The strategy is to exhaust all brand-extension options before introducing new brands. For instance, it recently introduced a brown-black colour variant for its Indica hair dye and enhanced the dye's durability to last for 30 days compared to 21 days earlier.

Again, the advertisement budget is to be increased by 15 per cent every year. CavinKare's ad-spend for 1998-99 was Rs 17 crore, which at about 25 per cent of sales, is still small compared to what industry leaders spend. Apart from advertising, the company markets its products through opinion-leaders like beauticians. It even held barber-meets recently in Maharashtra.

The company president N Venkat says the marketing strategy will have its main focus on `innovation'. For every product the company plans to launch, it has consciously decided to have a USP that no otherexisting brand has and which will appeal to the masses. ``Finding such USPs will be half the game won,'' he said. A satisfying statistic, according to Ranganathan, is that the customer retention level of the company's brands is more than 75 per cent.