Astral Limited was incorporated in 1996 to produce polymer piping systems in India. Today, they serve the requirements of millions of households while providing value to India’s growing building materials industry with unrivaled excellence.
In 1999, Astral released the first product, CPVC pipes for industrial applications. Overcoming a lot of obstacles, the company finally started seeing growth. They were the first company in India to train plumbers, given the CPVC product was new to India. In the first year itself, they trained thousands of plumbers. This practice is on to date and Astral trains lakhs of plumbers each year and which has led to the significant growth of the brand in recent years.
With the business operations managed by Sandeep Engineer, the brand initiatives and business development were led by the Gen Next of Astral, Kairav Engineer, son of Sandeep Engineer, took charge in 2011. He was responsible for creating top-of-mind awareness among consumers and enhancing brand visibility, at the same time ensuring business expansion by entering newer categories and launching new innovative products.
Kairav focused his efforts on creating high-octane campaigns resulting in robust growth in the company’s turnover. The business grew consistently and considerably during the period. The brand-building initiatives started with in-film co-promotion with Dabangg 2, a Salman Khan mega movie in 2012, that earned Astral top-of-mind recall, visibility, and strong brand affinity. The campaign also assisted Astral in reinforcing the brand idea, ‘Strong Nahin, Astral Strong’. The in-film branding worked for Astral because, in some rural parts of the country, the plumbers started asking for ‘Dabangg Pipes’ at the hardware stores! Banking on this success, Astral onboarded Salman Khan and produced campaigns aimed at increasing consumer involvement in the purchase process.
After that, Ranveer Singh was the next superstar who was brought on board to share the same enthusiasm and passion as Astral. This association reinforced Astral as the most trusted Pipe brand in India. The new narrative of ‘ India Ka Bharosemand Pipe’, promoted by Ranveer Singh drove home the message and worked extremely well since the brand already had the trust of the consumers.
Kairav has successfully transformed the company from a traditional sales-driven organisation to a market & consumer-centric organisation, which has put Astral Pipes on a fast growth trajectory. Now, Astral’s product offerings are no longer limited to just pipes, the company has forayed into multiple business verticals such as Water Tanks, Sealants-Adhesives, Paints, Sanity-ware- and Faucets. Under Kariav’s leadership and vision, Astral has not only rejuvenated but also diversified its business Offerings over the years to now become a one-stop shop for all building materials for consumers.