We aim to up penetration of Prega News kits to 26% by 2026: Joy Chatterjee

Mankind Pharma came into existence in 1986 and in 1991 the company was formed into a legal corporation. It actively started working as a fully integrated pharmaceutical company in 1995. Today, Mankind pharma has an employee base of over 14,000 and is surging towards $1 billion. The company manufactures and markets a range of products in OTC and FMCG across the country. Currently capturing a market share of 82%, one of their most successful brands, Prega News, has marked consistent growth and come a long way from 67% share in 2019.

Considering that the segment penetration across the country is very narrow, the company is working towards a unified goal of increasing the penetration of kits from 17% to 26% by 2026.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Joy Chatterjee, General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Mankind Pharma, speaks about the various marketing initiatives for their OTC brands and how they are making inroads in smaller towns and tapping the rural markets for Prega News.

Today, pharma brands are breaking the traditional way of going through the doctors. How has Mankind leveraged the OTC segment and what are some of the brands that are working well for you in the OTC category?

Our OTC category was established to provide solutions to our target consumers to help them improve their lifestyle difficulties. We have aimed to enhance the entire category as well as existing brands. We are also aiming to extend the product line soon with a few new launches.

Since its foundation in 2007, we have always thrived to stay ahead of our competition. We have developed creative and engaging marketing methods over the years.

Manforce is India's No. 1 condom brand, with a 36 per cent unit market share, way ahead of the next ranked brand. We believe that this is due to the brand's persistent marketing efforts and effective distribution network. Taking leverage of the well-thought-out marketing approach, we have constantly maintained a strong presence in the market. We plan to continuously innovate and add several new flavors, as well as more products under the sexual wellness area. Recently, we launched EPIC, a premium condom line from Manforce.

Now, talking about the other best-selling product, Prega News – India’s No. 1 Pregnancy Detection Test Kit, which holds about 82 per cent of the market share and is undoubtedly the leading brand in the category. With Prega News our focus has always been to educate women and their families around pregnancy. The brand aims to break stereotypes and social stigmas around pregnancy and womanhood. Through our campaigns, we spread awareness and take a firm stand on what we believe in as a brand. Considering that regional languages help us in reaching out to audiences beyond metropolitan cities, we curate vernacular content to penetrate deeper into the local market. The audience is better able to connect and receive the content when showcased in their own regional language. Keeping this in mind recently we came up with a TVC featuring Kajal Agarwal, who is a familiar face in the South film industry that helped us in generating the desired impact amongst the target audience. We also came up with an influencer activity campaign, where we roped in more than 21 regional mommy bloggers to spread the word around home pregnancy testing during the pandemic. Along with this, we have also launched a premium pack – Prega News Advanced, which is a one-step, mid-stream pregnancy detection kit to provide accurate and hassle-free results. 

Our other brand, Gas-O-Fast has been coming up with new campaigns in regional languages to communicate with their target audience and connect in their lingual language. Last year, the brand associated with multiple regional influencers for creating visibility and brand credibility. The activity nurtured better brand connections with consumers.

Currently, we are expanding our multivitamin portfolio under the Health OK umbrella. In addition to the already existing Health OK Multivitamin Tablets, we have launched Health OK Gummies for children, ensuring both health and taste on the same platter.

Likewise, AcneStar is planning on some digital campaigns and marketing strategies to reach out to its target audience. We are taking a regional approach by roping in popular faces from the regional film and television industry that will help the brand in establishing a direct connection with its audience.

You normally had celebrities endorsing your Prega News brand. However, your new film on Prega News for the Women’s Day ad had a different approach. What was the purpose in doing this and what kind of impact did the film have on audiences?

Our Women’s Day campaign for 2022 took a more personal route instead of dealing with an issue at the surface level. By beautifully bringing out the debate of motherhood vis-à-vis career that a woman encounters innumerable times throughout their life, vocalising their recurring dilemma helped us in better connecting with the audience. The ad was more focused on addressing the common insecurities that women come across during their various phases of life. It was aimed at celebrating the boundless spirit of womanhood with the #SheCanCarryBoth campaign. Our campaign showcased that society at large assumes that it’s difficult for women to nurture motherhood and be working professionals at the same time. It was created with the focus to break the stereotypical mindset of the society which deems women incapable of being a mother and an ambitious woman at the same time.

The ad harbored a sense of inclusivity that motivated the women to celebrate their various phases of womanhood while not compromising on their dreams and ambitions. The campaign garnered a promising result with the main video crossing approximately 20 million views across digital platforms by generating the desired conversation about a woman being able to manage both work and motherhood. Numerous women shared their stories as part of the campaign engagement.

With the advent of social media, a new channel has opened up for pharma brands. How have you leveraged influencer marketing and what kind of influencers endorse your brand and how do you bring credibility to the message?

We at Mankind Pharma consider influencer marketing as a tool to connect with our consumers at a greater intimate level. Through our campaigns, we tend to showcase situations that are common in everybody’s life and do a seamless brand integration, which is bound to create an impact in the viewer’s mind.

We can take the example of our brand Gas-O-Fast, which roped in celebrities like Rakesh Bedi and Guddi Maruti to establish a direct connection with the audience in their preferred language. This regional route helped us in building the effective reception of the content targeted at the multilingual audience.

Diving deeper into the digital space, we leveraged food and comic content creators from our target markets and showcased everyday situations of people facing acidity, gas, and indigestion issues with the help of Instagram Reels format and how Gas-O-Fast is an effective 3-in-1 solution for the same.

Likewise, for Prega News we roped in more than 21 regional mommy bloggers for the influencer activity campaign to educate women and their families around pregnancy. The entire collaboration was aimed at communicating the important RTBs of Prega News – Easy to Use Kit at the comfort of home backed up with rapid and accurate results to encourage expectant mothers to conduct pregnancy test from the comfort and safety of their homes during the unprecedented third wave.

For the campaign, the brand collaborated with well-known micro, macro, and celeb influencers, namely Surbhi Sharma, Nimisha Arora, Rashmi Thakur, Varsha Balani, to name a few, and marked a good response by clocking a reach of 6.5 lakh and 7.2 lakh view. The overall engagement of the campaign was 31,000.

For Prega News, this International Women’s Day we came up with the #SheCanCarryBoth campaign to celebrate the boundless spirit of womanhood. The campaign depicted the true spirit of women who can don multiple roles effortlessly. The campaign was aimed at breaking the stereotypical inhibitions arising in every woman’s mind and drove away their doubt that having a child could bring an end to their career. It harbored a sense of inclusivity that worked as a constant source of motivation for women to celebrate their various phases of womanhood while not compromising on their dreams and ambitions.

Likewise, we rolled out a digital campaign for SafeKind, a toilet seat disinfectant spray, that featured several women from different walks of life, including actor Delnaz Irani, to share their personal experiences and fears about using a public toilet. The video received and marked an impressive 3.9 million views on YouTube.

What’s going to be your growth strategy for the next 3 years? How do you plan to tap the smaller towns which are growing and also showing market potential to grow?

Currently portraying a market share of 82%, Prega News has marked consistent growth and come a long way from 67% in 2019. Passionate to further expand our product into the unorganised and unbranded market, we strive to form an emotional connection with the expectant mothers not just in metropolitan cities, but make our presence felt in the rural market as well. Considering that the segment penetration across the country is very narrow, we are working towards a unified goal of increasing the penetration of kits from 17% to 26% by 2026.

We are intensively reaching out to small towns with the help of our Rural Outreach Strategy, where we tie-up with local NGOs and Asha workers to penetrate deeper into the regional market. Last year, we launched an awareness drive with Asha workers in Lucknow to create awareness around the use of contraceptives and pregnancy detection cards. It was our first interactive session in Malihabad in Lucknow, aimed at breaking the myths prevalent in society and motivating people to adopt family planning in advance. In future, the company is keen on conducting such sessions in a phased manner and amplifying their endeavour to educate people on sexually transmitted infections, different contraceptive methods, and regular use of available contraceptives.

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