Dabur enters hand sanitiser category; says brands shouldn't be opportunistic in the time of crisis

As the demand for hand sanitisers reaches a new peak because of the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19), Dabur has entered the category with its new product, ‘Dabur Sanitize’.

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Interacting with BestMediaInfo.com, Ganapathy Subramaniam, DGM - Marketing, Dabur said the NPD (new product development) was already in the pipeline but with rising concerns over hygiene, the launch was advanced by a month.

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Ganapathy Subramaniam

Talking about its communication strategy he said, “We don’t intend to exclude any medium for this product. We target to reach out to as many consumers and reach them fast with the current situation, and thus started off from e-commerce as a platform. The product is not medium-restricted but medium-agnostic. As we scale it up, we will do mainstream.”

Asked whether or not the pandemic has altered its marketing strategy, Subramaniam said he doesn’t see any major deviations on medium consumption happening as of now. 

He added, “Once we reach a certain stage, we will be in a better position to decide what sort of media trends would emerge. Our mediums will depend on where people want us to see. The impact of Covid-19 on our media strategy would be how the consumers move with it, and I don’t see major deviations happening. We are very carefully watching where the consumption is and will build our media plans based on that. In fact, mediums are becoming complementary in today’s age. There is a misconception that one particular medium is huge or is mass.”

Available initially across all e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and Flipkart, the range of alcohol-based sanitisers is said to be highly effective in providing effective protection from disease-causing germs, instantly killing 99.9% germs without the use of soap and water.

The brand plans to extend it further to modern retail and offline stores soon.

A few brands are looking out for various opportunities to cash in on during the crisis. But Subramaniam said the company has priced the product from the category point of view and not on the basis of the outbreak, thus not making an opportunity out of it.

“Being present in the health space we understand hygiene is a very important part and as a brand, it fits us very well. It was in the pipeline, it is just because of so much concern over the hygiene the world over that we just advanced our launch. The idea is to target customers across the spectrum. Also, we have pretty much priced the products from the category point of view,” he said.

He said brands now should be very honest as they are communicating and should keep customers at the centre of it to not sound opportunistic. He said they should provide customers solutions as per their expectations.

Apart from this, Dabur is also running a series of awareness campaigns across digital platforms, social media and mainstream media to educate the public about how to keep themselves safe. 

Info@BestMediaInfo.com