Earlier this week, Asian Paints, the leader in India’s `70,000-crore decorative paints market, took out a front-page ad in The Times of India touting its “warranty promise”. One sentence in the body copy gave away the trigger. It said “At Asian Paints, it’s never about assurances for a year”. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that was a rebuttal to Birla Opus’ “One Year Assurance” — a free repainting guarantee to the customer if she faced issues like paint peeling, blistering and chalking within a year of painting — announced this August.
Industry dynamics shifted
Analysts say that Birla Opus’s entry has shifted the industry dynamics. “Asian Paints slipping from 59% to 52% in market share represents the most dramatic shift I’ve witnessed in India’s paint sector,” says Mukul Goyal, co-founder, Stratefix Consulting. Birla Opus has notched up around a 6.6% share of the market, he adds, at a time when incumbents are busy navigating a turbulent phase amid margin pressures, weak urban demand, and intense price-based competition.
Goyal attributes its early gains to the company’s massive groundwork. This is a sector where consumer inertia and contractor influence often cement loyalties for years. So the company invested heavily in contractor training and loyalty programmes while simultaneously marketing directly to homeowners through television, digital, outdoor, and impact properties like Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, and the IPL. Its ads aimed to forge an emotional connect with the consumer. For instance, the company paired its “One Year Assurance” with cultural storytelling through initiatives like a special film for Ganesh Chaturthi and the ‘Celebrating Colours of India’ campaign.
“Three years of intensive R&D went into designing most of our products from scratch. Only when we were convinced that our portfolio is far superior did we trigger the launch,” says Inderpreet Singh, head, marketing, Birla Opus Paints. Singh points out that the company is already present in 6,000 towns with 137 depots and six factories. For a category where contractor influence drives over 70% of consumer decisions, such deep penetration is crucial, say experts.
The company is eyeing `10,000-crore topline over the next three years. If awareness and recall is a compelling parameter to go by, 80% of urban India is already aware of the brand, shows its internal research. Singh credits both paid media and organic virality, including influencers sharing the brand’s films, for its quick acceptance.
An uphill task
Birla Opus has been very aggressive from the word go. With a `10,000-crore investment it added 40% industry capacity overnight, besides enrolling 300,000 contractors, 50,000 dealer partners, and rolling out compact tinting machines across markets, say experts. It now has 170-plus products and 1,400-plus SKUs in the market, spanning economy to premium.
The company had pinned its hopes on its existing relationship with paint dealers via its putty business. Through Ultratech Cement, the group owns Birla White Putty, a market leader. All paint dealers stock putty and that interaction gave the company an understanding of the paint distribution ecosystem, as well as an insight into the types of paints that are widely sold.
Now that the battle lines are redrawn, Birla Opus must spend big on dealer incentives and marketing to build on its early advantage. Its integrated premium-sustainable-convenient positioning will help it capture multiple evolving consumer segments at least to begin with, says Stratefix Consulting’s Goyal.
Siddharth Shekhar Singh, associate professor of marketing at the Indian School of Business, says that while culturally resonant campaigns will help, consumers ultimately look for the best solution. The clincher would be service delivery that cements long-term recall in this cluttered market, adds Yasin Hamidani, director, Media Care Brand Solutions.
Birla Opus’s toughest task would be to loosen the contractor’s grip on consumer choice. Sachin Modgil, associate professor, operations management and quantitative techniques, IMI Kolkata, says, “The company needs to develop a system that can empower consumers to feel more in control, while incentivising the contractors.”
Concludes Ambika Sharma, founder and chief strategist, Pulp Strategy: “Differentiators like warranties, faster service turnaround, and digital tools that simplify decision-making will create real value.”