The Background

Naturals Market
‘Naturals’ is exploding in India. Products with natural ingredients are being adopted by consumers
across categories. Be it Foods, Personal Care or even House Hold care – there is a wave of shi ing
happening from ‘Chemical/ Cosme c’ to ‘Natural’.

Speaking of Personal Care (Personal Care = Soaps + Shampoo + Tooth Pastes + Skin & Body Care) alone,
Natural products already form 38% of the market*. Moreover, for the past 3 years, this segment of
the market has been growing at 2X the rest.

*Categories considered: Skin Creams, Cleansing, Hair Oils (minus Coconut), Hair Wash, TP, Lipsticks,
Deos & Organic Dyes

Experts es mate that similar growth trends will con nue for the fore-seeable future. Approximately
6000Cr of Value will get added to Naturals as a segment over the next 4 years:
Market Players:
There are two kinds of players in the Naturals Personal Care market.

· Naturals Masterbrands (MB) like Dabur, Himalaya, Patanjali etc. These are the ones where the
parent brand is itself seen as Natural/ Herbal Ayurvedic and hence is every product from their
stable
· Natural variants of Cosme c brands (MC) – Examples of this are FAL Ayurveda, Clinic Plus
Ayurveda, Tresseme Bio que etc. He re, the parent brand is cosme c but they have introduced
variants with natural ingredients

The MB players dominate the Naturals market. ~80% of Naturals Market share is owned by MB. And
while all of them play on Naturals, they have differen a ng proposi ons within the Naturals pla orm.
Given below is a one line summary of the top players:

Dabur: Dabur’s success is driven by its credibility from legacy affilia on with Ayurveda and connec on
with the market

Himalaya: Himalaya’s success in Personal Care is driven by face wash which forms 50% of its PC
revenues; Efficacy is the focus of all their communica on.

Patanjali: has leveraged Baba Ramdev’s image and “Naturals” proposi on to grow rapidly to ~INR 5000
crore in FY16

Other MB players include – Vicco, Bio que, Forest Essen als, Kama etc.

Consumer Context
For consumers, Naturals is one big ‘green’ block of brands that have one or more natural ingredient
in them. For most consumers, Natural/ Herbal/ Ayurvedic are almost synonyms with slightly differ ent
connota ons a ached with each. Hence, it is important for any brand in the Naturals segment to
clearly state why it is different from all the other players. Else it stands the risk of becoming a me -too
and ge ng lost in this crowded segment.

On probing consumers specifically about ‘what is Naturals?’ – the following responses are illicited:
 1. No side effects
2. No chemicals
3. Zero Ammonia
4. No preserva ves
5. No Bleach

Hence, Naturals for many is defined by the absence of harmful chemicals.

HUL context:
HUL’s market share in the Personal Care is 37%. But HUL’s share in Non Naturals within this is ~50%
while within Naturals is ~10%. HUL’s en re share in Naturals comes from Naturals variants on Core
brands. HUL has no Naturals MB.

Hence, with Naturals pie growing, HUL stands to lose share in Personal Care.

The Plot
Lever Ayush
Lever Ayush is Brand that has been in the HUL stable for 16 years. Given below is a brief history of the
brand:

• 2001 – 2003 : Launched in 2001 as an Ayurvedic (Func onal) Healthcare Brand

• 2003 – 2005 : Marke ng Remained as a Ayush Brand Custodians, distribu on moved to HUL
Network

• 2005 – 2007 : Brand deepened its Ayurvedic roots through Ayush Therapy Centre

• 2007 – 2014 :

• Shut down of Ayush Therapy Centres

• Health & Wellness Por olio con nued to be sold through HUL Network

• 2015 – Ayush relaunched as an Ecommerce only brand. Exclusive launch with Amazon.

Lever Ayush Re-Launch

In 2016, given the Naturals market context and HUL’s share posi on in it, HUL re -launched Lever Ayush
as a Personal Care Naturals Masterbrand. Given below is a brief snapshot of how the new Lever Ayush
looks and what it stands for:
Salient Points:

· The new Lever Ayush has products across 4 categories as indicated above.
· The Brand’s Proposi on is: 5000 years of Ayurvedic Wisdom to solve Modern Lifestyle
Problems
· It's a mass-market brand with pricing in line with market leaders in each segment. You can
assume that Lever Ayush pricing is 10-20% premium to average market pricing.
· Complete details on Lever Ayush, its products and adver sing can be seen on the link below:
www.leverayush.com/

You may also visit the brand’s social media pages to experience the brand communica on and
proposi on.

Present Day
HUL launched Lever Ayush in South India in Jan 2017. The launch has seen early trac on and buoyed
by this HUL has decided to take this brand Na onal in August 2017.

The Brief
While Ayush is s ll in launch phase, two important ques ons need to be answered soon to ensure that
this brand keeps growing in the medium to long term:

1. Long Term – Which other product categories should Lever Ayush aim to enter? Given that
naturals is penetra ng across varied segments like foods and inges ble and home care –
which are best next segments for the brand to enter?

2. Medium Term (2-4 years) – How should Ayush con nue to differen ate itself? In a clu ered
Naturals market, what should be ayush’s take on the naturals play – one that keeps it from
becoming a me-too brand.
Appendix – New Lever Ayush Key Visuals