It has been two years since Bangalore-based Himalaya Drug Company changed its marketing gameplan by bringing in all its products under the "Himalaya" brand. Deccan Herald's Dilip Maitra spoke to the company's Chief Executive Officer & President Ravi Prasad to find out how the initiative is working.

DH: It has been two years since you brought all your different product categories under "Himalaya". How is umbrella branding concept working?
Ravi Prasad: The product categories medicinal range, personal care, pure herbs and animal health were all brought under "Himalaya" brand because we wanted to create a one stop-shop for herbal health care. The name Himalaya has much in common with the mountain range from which it draws its name.

For centuries, Himalayas have been the icon of aspiration and man's quest to unlock nature's secrets. The fact that Himalayas are the source of many herbs that are used in our products makes the brand name even more appropriate. Since the Himalaya brand carries with it a promise of good health and well-being, re-branding has helped dissolve artificial borders in the consumers' mind between various product categories.

The company benefited immensely; our sales went up 25 percent to Rs. 300 crore last year, there is a shift in our consumer profile as more and more younger people are now buying Himalaya products.

DH: Do consumers look at Himalaya differently?
RP: Sure, there is a change in perception. When we talk about Ayurveda people generally think that herbal products are old, slow acting and ineffective. But in Himalaya we have pioneered the use of modern science to rediscover and validate ayurveda.

We employ cutting-edge research to create highly effective fast-acting products that are safe and natural. And this has changed the perception of Himalaya as a modern and contemporary producer of herbal healthcare products.

DH: You have nearly 140 products all together but only about 25 to 30 products promoted actively. The logic?
RP: The problem is retail outlets like pharmaceutical shops have limited shelf space and cannot store all our products. So, we promote more important ones that contribute to the bulk of our turnover.

DH: Do you have a retail strategy to promote all products?
RP: Early this year we realized that to make our entire range of products available to consumers we need to adopt a different strategy.

Thus, we launched exclusive Himalaya stores, most of them franchised, in all big cities. Till now we have 31 such stores, 4 in Bangalore, that keeps the entire range. But we are finding that this process is slow and not effective enough to spread out. So we have decided to launch Shop-in-Shop (S&S) stores in large and prominent shopping complexes like Food World, Shoppers Stop, Life Style, etc. This will ensure reaching out to the target audience in large numbers.

These shops will be manned by our trained sales people. By end March 2004, we expect to have at least 50 S&S and then by end of the next year the target is to reach 100.