Real Interaction With Consumers Ensures More ‘Believability’ in the Brand: Sunil Agarwal, RSH Global

by  Srabana Lahiri Industry Watch | November 17, 2020 | Interview

RSH Global Private Limited Sunil Agarwal

Sunil Agarwal, Co-Founder & Chairman of RSH Global Private Limited, the Kolkata-based company that manufactures Joy Personal Care, X-Men and Karis Naturals products, has a deep understanding of consumer needs that has led to the success of his business over the last three decades. So much so that by 2009-10, RSH Global as a company reached the Rs 50 crore mark, with zero advertising spends, relying solely on word of mouth to grow from scratch. Only in 2011, at the behest of their dealers, did RSH Global start advertising, getting Anushka Sharma on board, and subsequently Kriti Sanon as brand ambassadors. Now, Agarwal aims to take the business to Rs 1,000 crore revenue by 2022-23.

A large part of RSH Global’s promotional activities comprise events, and here, Sunil Agarwal talks to EVENTFAQS Media about utilising the events and experiential marketing space for his brands as well as the company’s social responsibility agenda.

How do you view the potential of the events and experiential marketing space? How has RSH Global engaged with or benefited from the medium?

We have been doing a lot of events – we have events where consumers and dealers can meet and greet the celebrities endorsing our products. We have been doing events with television celebrities as well every winter, for our Honey Almond lotion. We engaged with Mouni Roy for our sunscreen as well as the lotion. If everything goes well, we’ll be doing it this season too with Kriti Sanon, our brand ambassador for body lotion and face washes. Earlier, we did events with comedienne Bharti Singh, which became a path-breaking exercise. We have consumer engagement activities related to festivals and culture – Garba is very popular in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and in these States, during Navratri, we were title sponsors for Garba events. We did very good branding exercises there. It’s not only ATL spends, that will take us places. We need to engage with our consumers on the ground, and also engage with our stake-holders the right way, at their place. That ensures more ‘believability’ in the brand, and we have been achieving it, very often. This year, it’s slightly tough to have events; but still we managed to do a lot of social activities during the pandemic. During an activity involving transgenders and sex workers, we distributed 50,000 units of hygiene products to them in Kolkata. We have been focused on such activities for brand-building, and also as we are a responsible company.

What are the top priorities for RSH Global going forward?

I can put our top priorities into three buckets - internal priority, external priority and other priorities. Internally, we need to totally professionalise the business, which we had been running like a home-grown company. We are quite professionally managed already. For instance, we have people like Poulomi Roy, who is our CMO, and our Sales Head, who was the sales head of L’Oreal earlier. We need to create more entrepreneurs among our people, and hand over the entrepreneurship from our hands to theirs. We need to create awareness, make the top leadership aware as to where opportunity for the organization lies and how we can really scale it up. My next task is to pass on the baton of the organization to the right people at the right time.

As for the external priorities, these I’ll put into building blocks. Geographical expansion to West Bengal and Maharashtra is one priority, along with presence in high saliency outlets by way of robust sales and transformation of the distribution system. We are focusing all our energies on these two States, which will give around Rs 250 crore business in the next 2-3 years. We are getting a sales force automation system in place this year. Due to the pandemic, it is slightly delayed, but we’re getting there.

We also need category expansion beyond moisturizers. We have got very good numbers for our moisturizers and body lotions. Out of every 10 body lotions that sell in India, one is from us (10% market-share) and out of every 10 moisturizing creams sold, three are ours (30% market-share). Our only challenge is to retain these numbers. In face washes, we just have 2-3% market-share. We are figuring out how to make it a more than Rs 100 crore category in the next two years.