Future Consumer is focusing more on home, personal care with 'smart' brands

Home and personal care makes up about 15% of FCL's portfolio, with staples being the biggest contributor to its business

As Future Group evolved over the years beyond mass appeal to cater to niche segments thus helping the prominent player to engage with young customers in newer retail format stores, colour bleeding stains emerged as a major concern within home care. Future Consumer Limited (FCL), the FMCG arm of the conglomerate, has now launched a brand called Prim that aims to introduce smart products to take care of such concerns and make life convenient for a millennial audience.

FCL, which has been in existence for two years, is focused more on home and personal care this year. Its nine brands in this space do business of Rs 3 billion for FCL.

“FMCG companies are looking at products with a standard mindset. We wanted to move away and build products for the millennial generation. The company and products are speaking a language suited to this audience,” says Future Group director Keshav Biyani, who leads FCL’s home and personal care business.

Future Group has had brands like Clean Mate and Care Mate for about eight years straddling paper, disposables, home cleaning et al. But while Clean Mate products have been catering to the domestic help, with Prim the company aims to reach out to young people who are self-reliant, says Biyani.

So Prim’s portfolio includes a product like Colour Grabber, which provides sheets that can be placed along with unsorted clothes in the washing machine to absorb colour runs. Similarly, other products such a sponge to remove stains on hard surfaces, fridge odour absorber, moisture absorber, wipes with micro-fibre technology that attracts dust easily are billed to satisfy those who have used them abroad but failed to find them besides in a highly localised manner across India. With Prim, FCL aims to generate business of Rs 1 billion in three years. “Clean Mate in the traditional cleaning space will exist, but Prim will be a more evolved and smarter version of it,” adds Biyani.

Home and personal care makes up about 15 per cent of FCL’s portfolio, with staples being the biggest contributor to its business. In order to expand in personal care, FCL has tied up with the Mibelle Group, which is part of Migros, Switzerland’s largest retailer. Future Group looks at the Swiss company as a model that could be replicated-retailers with own brands in stores.

“We have partnered with them to help with the back end in terms of technology, manufacturing and formulation expertise, and our front end (in distribution) is very strong. So it creates a win-win proposition.” Swiss Tempelle, a brand which is part of the joint venture, was launched one and a half years ago, and has a portfolio of body washes, body lotions and face washes.

While FCL aims to enter more categories such as fabric care in the third quarter this year, baby care in April and air freshener in March, group firm Future Ideas serves as the incubation lab by identifying consumer trends and need gaps.

When asked about differentiation, Biyani says it comes either through price or product USP. For instance, FCL’s brand Think Skin (body wash) has a price differentiation, while it has built in an “ingredient story” with Swiss Tempelle where each product has a “hero” Indian and Swiss ingredient each.

“For example, a fash wash product comprises tulsi from India and volcanic ash from Switzerland. We aim to have price or product USP in terms of points of differentiation always. We don’t want to be ‘me too’ at all,” says Biyani.

He stresses that Prim is an entirely new category of smart and differentiated market, but a lot of education and engagement with the consumer would be required. As such, at the back of product packs the company has placed QR codes that can be scan which in turn directs the mobile phone user to a live demo video. While in food category, with food parks in place, FCL controls consistency across its value chain including back-end strength and technology, the journey has only just begun for it in home and personal care, adds Biyani.

Harminder Sahni, founder and managing director, Wazir Advisors, Future Group’s retail arm is about great location, store and merchandise at great price, where the talk is not about the product. But for its consumer business (FCL), every single product has to have its own story—including formulations, innovation or USPs—to compete with other brands. Merely putting the products in their own stores does not guarantee brand success.

“In India, the penetration of consumer products is quite high in some categories such as toothpaste and soap, but there are hundreds where penetration is very low. Many products don’t even exist. Second, within categories where penetration is high the number of brands present is very low. So, there is a lot of room for expansion and growth because of the gaps in consumer segments, which companies such as FCL are identifying,” says Sahni.