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Tag: Super Plastronics

  • Digital marketing really worked for us during the pandemic: Super Plastronics’s Avneet Singh Marwah

    Digital marketing really worked for us during the pandemic: Super Plastronics’s Avneet Singh Marwah

    When the second-generation entrepreneur, Avneet Singh Marwah took over the reins of the company, it was still known for manufacturing plastic injection moulds which it started in the 1970s and 80’s. He slowly steered it into what it is today – one of the country’s largest TV manufacturing firms and the exclusive India licensee of global brands such as Kodak, Thomson televisions. It has recently also tied up with the German consumer electronics brand Blaupunkt.

    He started his journey in the company as an assistant manager and made his way through, before taking over the reins of the company from his father, Amarjeet Singh Marwah, the founder chairman of the company. “I worked in almost all divisions – from moulding to assembly line to service, accounting, finance, and sales. I worked on the field itself and spent three to four months in each department,” Avneet said, “In those six-seven years I never had any office or anything.”

    From thereon, there was no looking back for Marwah who went on to change the game and turn the fortunes for Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL). Under his leadership, SPPL has now become one of the leading smart TV and home appliance manufacturers, selling top-of-the-charts global brands in India’s booming e-commerce market, via Flipkart and Amazon. Under the brand’s aegis, the European consumer technology brand, Thomson is currently among the ‘Top Five selling online smart TV brands’ in India.  

    IndianTelevision’s Anupama Sajeet had an in-depth conversation with SPPL, CEO Avneet Singh Marwah on the brand’s journey from plastic moulding to being India’s largest contract manufacturing firm & the exclusive licensee of four renowned international television brands. He also spoke about spotting opportunities amid the pandemic gloom, and talked about what it means to be an online exclusive brand, and future plans.

    Edited excerpts:

    On the origins Super Plastronics and the journey so far

    It’s been 30-years since we forayed into black & white CRT, colour, LCD & now LED televisions. Before that, our work was limited to plastic moulding for television. Currently, we have a couple of LCD brands in our portfolio, about 550 service centres, 24 pan India offices, and 28 warehouses across India. There are three manufacturing plants located in Noida, Una, and Jammu. By the end of the year, we will be shifting to our new fully automated TV manufacturing plant in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh where the target set is 1.5 billion units a year. In fact, we have the second-largest manufacturing plant in India, after LG.

    We began with Kodak in 2016 and offered ‘global technology at competitive prices. In 2018, we launched the French consumer electronic brand Thomson. Now, we have four international brands on board, including the German consumer electronics brand Blaupunkt. SPPL has complete rights to these brands from manufacturing to sales to marketing. There are two parts to it – the first is providing the most affordable TV sets in India and the second category is premium TV sets.

    On what led to the brand’s expansion plans amid the pandemic gloom

    The pandemic actually presented a big opportunity to all the manufacturing units in India. Firstly, the government banned the import of LED televisions’ CBUs (complete build units) last year, which led to a huge spike in the market in terms of the television industry. Earlier, there were a lot of imports happening in televisions. With the decision to ban it, one had to manufacture and assemble them in India. Plus, globally everyone’s looking for an alternative to China. We see this as a great opportunity for us with the government taking a decision on manufacturing all appliances in India. So, apart from television, we are foraying into appliances.

    On the brand’s focus on e-commerce and its region-specific growth

    We are an online-exclusive brand to Flipkart and it’s one of the largest retailers of TV sets in India, with an approximate market share of 44 per cent currently. When we started out about three years back, we had a strong online presence in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, but now we see a huge surge of growth in tier 3 and 4 towns, as well. In fact, in the last one year the maximum growth has happened in tier 2 and 3 regions.

    To be region-specific, the online sales have grown in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi NCR and Uttar Pradesh. In the West, Gujarat and Maharashtra, where the latter is among the best-selling states with maximum consumerism in India. In the East, West Bengal is seeing a spike; Assam and Odisha again have a bright future for online sales.

    The advantage of being online-exclusive currently is that we are seeing a 100% YoY (year-on-year) growth for Thomson. Pandemic has led people to move from offline to online even for buying appliances and electronics.

    On SPPL’s marketing strategy to reach out to consumers

    We are primarily marketing through the digital platform- that has really worked for us. At first, we targeted the online customers where the intent of buying is high based on their searches, so the conversion to sales is high. Now, we have started focusing on the customers, who were buying offline to encourage them to buy online and we have seen a lot of first-time e-buyers in the last eight months. We get lots of traction from influencer marketing, social media, google ad words- we have a 360-degree ecosystem in digital marketing.

    Apart from that, our strategic partner is Flipkart and whenever there’s any ATL/ BTLs or TV campaigns during festive season periods they include the SPPL brand name as well – only on those particular days do we target TV. That includes print campaigns too, but the print is in the decline stage right now and we don’t get too many eye-balls via it; this was more so true during the pandemic when sales of newspapers took a hit.  

    On the impact on brand growth and revenue during the pandemic

    We have been an online exclusive brand for Flipkart since 2018. We have seen a 100 per cent year-on-year growth phase. Last year after the first lockdown there was a huge pent-up demand and the whole world was hooked to their screens due to WFH, online classes, and people shifting to OTT platforms due to lack of fresh content on the TV – all of which led to record sales for us. But after the hard-hitting second wave, because of low disposable income, people had reservations about spending on high-value items and electronics. But, there is a huge inflationary demand for televisions in the country that will continue. As soon as the consumer sentiment improves, we will again find a growth pattern.

    On the plans to be an online exclusive brand for high-value items like TV and washing machines, post pandemic

    We have seen once the customer starts buying online it becomes very difficult for him to come out of it, because of various factors- there are offers that run exclusively online. Both Amazon and Flipkart are creating an ecosystem around it. Plus, there’s a limitation of shelf space when one goes to buy offline, thus one will not find the complete product catalogue in one place, unlike online where you’ll find the complete package in terms of variety. Hence, I don’t believe it will be affected once the lockdowns and restrictions cease.

    We are covering almost every town and city pan India, and now all set to foray into the rural markets too. With regards to product diversification, right now we have introduced air-coolers, before that it was washing machines. We are working on a couple of more product categories that need to be finalised before they can be announced.

    On what sets the brand apart from other local players?

    There are very few brands in India which have a network of more than 550 service centres. In the next few years, we plan to take that number to 800, which will be one of the highest for any television brand in India. Thus, we have a well-established network, which we have developed over the last three years, which is a challenging task for any new brand or an existing Chinese smartphone brand. We cater to 2,300 cities and towns that contribute to over 85 per cent of sales.

    Additionally, we have about 28 warehouses across India, with a door-to-door service which is a huge factor when it comes to spare parts replacement. The delivery period is also drastically cut down when there’s local warehousing with spares, and this gives a huge advantage to customers. Plus, we are one of the few brands which have the capability of doing replacement of TVs from the customer doorstep- even in tier 3, tier 4 towns which most other brands struggle to do.

  • Companies pin hopes on monsoon season to lift the ‘Covid-gloom’

    Companies pin hopes on monsoon season to lift the ‘Covid-gloom’

    MUMBAI: Monsoons are critical for the revival of consumer demand in our agri-dependent country, both in rural and urban regions. In a market already marred by the pandemic, how’s the sentiment this monsoon season? To gauge the marketing mood in this season of renewed hope, IndianTelevision.com spoke to a few marketers and industry stakeholders on the opportunities and challenges during the season in the backdrop of the pandemic, the marketing strategy adopted by brands to reach out to customers, and more.

    The outbreak of the pandemic and the subsequent turn of events has not only crippled daily life but also hit industries and the economy hard. After the long, harsh summer, companies are now exuding hope of business gaining momentum from the second quarter of 2021-22 with the onset of monsoon. The steady decline in Covid cases and the relaxation in lockdown restrictions in some states has led to some cautious optimism in the consumer market.

    “Our efforts are to revamp the market sentiment, which has been affected due to the deadly second wave, and in doing so we stand strong. Catering to over 18,000 pin codes and having 550 service centres across India, we have worked on a robust supply chain and logistics to ensure that there are no seasonal factors that impact our operations and the overall consumer experience of the brand,” says Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL) – the Indian licensee for French Electronics’ brand Thomson – CEO Avneet Singh Marwah.

    Last June the company announced it would invest Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years to expand its manufacturing capacity and strengthen its presence in the consumer electronics and appliances segment. The firm is also making a foray into the home appliances segment with washing machines and cooling product categories under brand Thomson, as part of its expansion plans. As part of its strategy, the company said it would continue to focus on affordability with aggressive pricing and harness the potentials of e-commerce channels.

    “At Thomson, our commitment is to provide ‘Friendly Technology’ to the discreet online shopper, who wants ‘global technology at competitive prices. Our e-shoppers can benefit and avail various bank offers and discounts this monsoon season too, as we put out offers every season on Flipkart,” says Marwah, adding that it would always remain a D2C brand, with a consumer-centric approach.”

    FMCG has traditionally been among the sectors that tend to benefit from a good monsoon. With IMD’s forecast of a normal monsoon, there are indications of salvaging the sector from the pandemic’s impact.

    Consumer confidence for urban Indians has also shown mild recovery in June 2021 with a slight uptick of 1.4 percentage points, over the previous month, according to the monthly Refinitiv-Ipsos Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (PCSI). It had shown a steep drop in May due to the aggressive second wave impact.

    Backed by positive consumer sentiment, Oil processing company Modi Naturals Ltd CMO Shardul Bist says, ”Typically, during the monsoon, consumption for most food and cooking brands goes up. These are the crucial months for edible oil brands like us to build volumes and reach out to consumers. We had already planned our marketing calendar, which had to be revised due to the pandemic for the second consecutive year. We have planned it in three phases – Critical, Recovery, and Stabilizing to match the mood of the consumers as we move through the year.”

    According to Bist, consumers’ preferences generally move towards fried food during the rains, and thus the usage of oil increases. “We have to plan our media strategy keeping the pandemic into consideration. We are bullish on our marketing spends and have planned a strong 360-degree marketing campaign during Q2 which includes TV, Print, and Digital with our brands, Oleev and Pipo. Along with the media, we are planning to diversify into healthy food categories and are planning to launch new products in Q2,” he says.

    Unsurprisingly, the demand for Health and immunity boosters has also shot up. “In the last few months, the demand for multivitamin and mineral supplements has seen an upward growth”, says Mankind Pharma’s Joy Chatterjee. “We changed our strategy at the right time and ‘Health OK’ was shifted into the OTC category. This has generated demand, need, and revenue for us. We are growing in double digits, and we give a lot of stress upon building brand equity as well. With strong brand equity, one can enjoy all benefits of the value chain. Going further, we expect the percentage to increase.”

    Chatterjee says that the Pharma brand’s marketing strategy remains the same, which is basically to make people aware of the product and its benefits. “We are taking on a 360-degree approach to reach our target audience, we can’t just rely on one medium- because our product is such that it caters to different age groups. So, we decided to be available across marketing channels- whether it is TV, print media and even focusing on regional newspapers. However, TV is still our number one choice because of its reach and impact.”

    The brand recently released a TVC featuring Health Ok tablets brand ambassadors Anil Kapoor and Ranveer Singh. “Other than this, we are highly active on social media platforms too and collaborating with popular influencers from different speaking markets. We are also increasing our budget on digital to capture the attention of the audience in the digital space,” he added.

    dentsumcgarrybowen India EVP & head- planning & strategy, Vishal Nicholas says that apart from health, a few other categories that do get activated during the monsoons are Tyres, Auto Insurance, and Food-delivery apps. Talking about how marketers can leverage it he says, “This category (tyres & auto insurance) sees a lot of traction during monsoons as roads get slippery. This time around though, many vehicles would have been lying unused, and hence, with the unlock process beginning across the country, the tyres would be more susceptible to under-performing in the monsoons. Tyre brands and even auto insurance brands can sensitise consumers to these potential concerns and even direct them to the nearest place of redressal.”

    On how brands can indulge the spike in food cravings during this season he says, “Food-delivery brands can use the first-party data creatively here as well as their own real estate. They can use location data and intersect it with weather data to highlight geographies and customers where it is raining. Once identified, push notifications on their own platform can nudge the consumer to order his cravings.”

    DViO Digital founder & CEO Sowmya Iyer agrees that the pandemic has certainly changed the overall marketing landscape and that monsoon campaigns are no exception. “Nevertheless, the brands don’t want to let go of that sense of normalcy and marketers are putting in efforts to appreciate the beauty that lies in the weather while being mindful of the safety concerns and sensitive towards the current situation,” she says, adding that the pleasant, nostalgic and romanticised setup of the season is often leveraged by brands for promoting product features. Sharing about the success of a recent digital promotional campaign that the agency curated for Universal Music’s VYRLOriginals, Iyer says it is a testament that immersive and creative campaigns have excellent engagement on digital and social.

    A looming threat of a possible third wave, however, means that we are not out of the woods yet, and treading with caution will need to be the key.