Dabur Red goes past Rs 100 cr

Dabur has added one more Rs 100 crore brand to its kitty. Riding high on the growing popularity of ayurveda, Dabur Red Toothpaste has achieved this landmark in less than six years.

Dabur Red Toothpaste’s growth has also helped the company emerge as the fastest growing toothpaste company in India during 2009-10, with a near 20 per cent growth as against an industry average of under 6 per cent. In comparison, Colgate-Palmolive (the largest player in the segment) reported 8.7 per cent growth while the No. 2 player Hindustan Unilever saw its toothpaste sales decline by 4.2 per cent, according to AC Nielsen data.

Dabur Red Toothpaste alone accounts for over 4 per cent of the toothpaste market share while Dabur, as a company, controls nearly 14 per cent of the toothpaste market.

The toothpaste was introduced as the paste format of Dabur’s highly popular Dabur Lal Dantmanjan in order to capture those consumers who had upgraded from a toothpowder to toothpaste. The brand’s claim that that the toothpaste is packed with the power of 13 ayurvedic ingredients like laung, pudina and sunthi to offer problem-free teeth has obviously found many takers, as it reported a 17.4 per cent growth during the 2009-10 fiscal.

With this, Dabur now has a portfolio that boasts of ten Rs 100 crore brands -- Dabur Chyawanprash, Real, Vatika, Dabur Amla, Dabur Glucose, Dabur Honey, Lal Dant Manjan and Babool.

Dabur, say company officials, operates in the toothpaste market with a highly differentiated product portfolio that includes Dabur Red Toothpaste, Babool and Meswak. “While Red Toothpaste offers the benefits of ayurveda that are validated by science, Babool and Meswak offer the benefits of natural herbs for oral care. The efficacy of our products is proven by the growing number of consumers,” says Nobel Dhingra, Brand Head - Dabur Red Toothpaste.

The success has come through a lot of hard work – education of consumers being one of the main drivers. Key marketing initiatives like school contact programmes under which Dabur reached out to 1.5 million students annually to educate them about oral hygiene have helped in conversions and in increasing market share.

Ayurvedic toothpaste was not something that Dabur was the first to create. There are age-old brands like Baidyanath Red Tooth Paste, Vicco Toothpaste and Amrutanjan, but what tilted the scale in Dabur’s favour is the company’s herbal heritage.

Harminder Sahni, Managing Director, Wazir Advisors, says, “Earlier such products were popular among rural consumers, now even urban consumers are picking these up”

Dhingra agrees, “We are increasingly seeing a shift in consumer preference towards natural and ayurvedic products that are offered in contemporary, ready-to-use formats.” It’s no surprise therefore that the brand sells primarily in urban areas of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.