Mosquito repellents take the village road

Leading brands are doing it all — innovative products, pricing and campaigns — for a bigger bite of the market.

It’s called the ‘Macchar Mukti Abhiyan’ (programme for freedom from mosquitoes). No, it’s not another of those government-sponsored “rural development” programmes; it’s actually Dabur’s way of connecting with its target consumers.

Launched two months ago, the customer awareness programme is being played out across 232 villages in 50 districts of Uttar Pradesh. The purpose is to promote Odomos Oil, the company’s mosquito repellent brand for rural India. The oil costs almost half that of Odomos cream at Rs 17 for 40 ml.

Dabur, which is a clear market leader in the mosquito repellent cream market, has contacted over 13,000 retailers in the state. Buoyed by the success, Dabur now wants to move to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Rohit Prakash Gupta, Dabur’s Category head-home care, says, “Our research team took a year to come out with this product to suit rural consumers.”

The move makes sense as almost a third of Odomos sales come from rural India. The company saw 40 per cent growth in sales in the first six months of this year. So Gupta expects 25 per cent sales growth from rural pockets next year.

Apart from the low base effect, Gupta has other reasons to be so optimistic. The insecticide market in India is worth Rs 2400 crore and mosquito repellents account for 80 per cent of that. Industry experts say sales should touch Rs 3900 crore by 2014-15. The potential is huge: per capita usage of repellents is still very low in India — 16.4 per cent households in urban areas, 22.6 per cent in metros and a mere 6.9 per cent in rural areas.

But the market leader has serious competition. Leading players such as Godrej and Jyothy Labs are also taking aggressive steps through innovative products at lower price points.

Take Jyothy, which sells mosquito repellents under the Maxo brand. The company is now all set to introduce a special product called ‘Maxo Military’, a mosquito repellent cream in a Rs 3 sachet. It is already being test marketed in rural Kerala and would be soon available in other locations across the country.

K Raghvendra, AGM, marketing services department, Jyothy Labs, says, the company has a 1,500-strong sales team for rural areas and is in the process of expanding it further. Jyothy is promoting the cream, specially its effectiveness to prevent malaria, through village haats, jatras (street plays) etc. The new mosquito repellent tissue was developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Reckitt Benckiser also recently revamped its portfolio of coils, liquid vaporizers and aerosols under the brand name of Mortein PowerGard for all pest control, including mosquitoes, cockroaches and flies.

The Godrej group is also not far behind. A Mahendran, MD, Godrej Consumers Products, says the rural market is already growing much faster than urban. “Rural distribution and penetration increase will continue to be the growth driver in future,” he adds.

The company, which has 36 per cent share in the mosquito repellent market with its brands — Goodknight, HIT, Jet, and Banish, says coil is a very popular category in rural India due to economy and ease of usage. Also, with fumigation being a key traditional method of repelling mosquitoes and electricity playing truant, coils become that much more relevant, Mahendran says. The group is also active in the Kill Malaria campaign in collaboration with various municipal agencies and panchayats.

Clearly, promoting social awareness has never been so profitable.