We are aiming at 100% growth in 2021: Sujot Malhotra, CEO, Beardo

• Male grooming brand Beardo recently onboarded actor Hrithik Roshan to launch its campaign featuring the avatar Don Beardo, while creating a lot of buzz online.
• Sujot Malhotra, CEO, Beardo talks to us about the brand's growth story so far while sharing his optimism about the brand growing by 100% this year.

Male grooming brand Beardo recently launched an interesting campaign called Don Beardo featuring actor Hrithik Roshan. The brand created a lot of buzz around the campaign through its social media handles and got people curious. In the past, the brand has worked with influencers and celebrities like Suneil Shetty, BeYouNick, BhuvanBam, Ashish Chanchlani. Currently, along with Roshan, the brand also has cricketer KL Rahul and actor Yash of KGF fame as its face.


Since its inception five years back, the brand has witnessed good growth. The direct-to-consumer had started out with products focusing on beards. However, over the years, it has diversified its offerings and has now evolved into a men’s grooming company offering haircare, skincare, merchandise, and lifestyle products. That the brand was on a good trajectory was proven when Marico bought around 45% of its stake in 2017.

While it started out as an online brand, with Marico’s support, Beardo now has a good offline presence too. We recently caught up with Sujot Malhotra, CEO, Beardo who spoke to us about the brand’s recent campaign, its growth story so far and what makes him confident of achieving 100% growth this year.

Excerpts:

Q) Your recent digital campaign features Hrithik Roshan. Why is the actor a good fit for Beardo?
As a personality-driven brand, we were sure about Hrithik’s whole persona - his looks and the influence he commands. He is one of India’s sexiest ‘manly man’ and the way he carries his beard is aspirational for many. Everyone wants to sport a beard and if Hrithik can become a Beardo, we can expect a lot more people to sway the Beardo way.

Q) Give us a sense of what this campaign entails?
The idea is to push the character of Don Beardo and create an aspiration amongst men in the country to become one. We have given them a glimpse of what a Beardo’s world would look like. The messaging remains that ‘Anyone can grow a beard but not everyone can be a Beardo.’

Q) Apart from the digital campaign, how else are you going to communicate with your consumers?
We are a digital-first brand so the majority of our communication with our consumers is through digital avenues such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, providing fun and engaging content to our audience along with the right mix of meme marketing, influencer marketing and more. However, we believe that there should be a balance between offline and online marketing. For a holistic 360 degree approach, we will similarly invest in offline channels and ensure that the ‘Arrival of Don Beardo’ is efficiently publicised via collaterals such as brochures available in salons. In order to further amp up the arrival of Don Beardo, we have also handpicked some of our best sellers and curated four Don Beardo combos – Don Beardo Growth Pro Kit with our newly launch Beard Activator, Don Beardo Favourites Combo, Don Beardo Night Out Combo and Don Beardo Signature Combo that can be purchased both online and offline.

Q) How has Beardo's journey in the last 5 years been? What have some of your key milestones been?
There are many milestones that we’ve achieved over the last five years. The first, we are literally the pioneers in creating a category for Men’s grooming products in the country. We started off as a beard care brand, but over the years have successfully ventured into haircare, skincare, merchandise, and lifestyle products. We are here to provide everything that a man wants in life and we will continue expanding our portfolio to align with that vision. Content has been the hero for us and we’ve churned out many viral campaigns like Such a Beardo, My Mooch My Swag, Hello Beardo and many more.

Also, we have worked with over 300 leading influencers and celebrities like Suneil Shetty, BeYouNick, BhuvanBam, Ashish Chanchlani and now we also have Hrithik Roshan, Yash and KL Rahul on board during different events. Over the last five years, our revenue has approximately grown over 40 times.

Q) A lot of your sales come from online channels but you now have a good offline presence too. How are you working towards further expanding your offline presence?
When we ventured into the men’s personal care and grooming space, we knew this trend is here to stay and has potential consumers across both online and offline markets. In 2016, we initiated our operations through the website and key e-commerce platforms and then penetrated into the offline space via salons and luxury retail chains.
Parallelly, with changing trends, content and influencer seeding became our core marketing objective – we wanted every man in the country to know that Beardo is there to fulfil their grooming, lifestyle requirement and more. Campaigns like SuchABeardo, Beardo69, WhyFeardoThere’sBeardo, Beardo Boss, Dump the Razor attracted many eyeballs. While the content is fun, we also look at educating the audience about the right product and different regimes. We constantly invest in online marketing too – with a focus on Google and Facebook.

Eventually, our offline properties like Beardothon, Beard&Mustache competitions also started getting recognition. In order to tap a great audience, the brand onboarded KL Rahul and associated with KXIP.

Besides this, we as a brand has come up with many of its first kind of products for men, -- The Charcoal Range, Vitamin C Range, Beard Oils, Beard Serums and Softeners, etc.

To ensure quality standards, we are working with an in-house beauty trainer and technical product developer on a professional range of products that are created specially to offer the best Beardo services at salons.

Q) What are your plans of taking the brand deeper into Bharat?
Beardo is a ‘Bharat’ focused brand – made in India and retailed in India. Our online consumer penetration is massive, which allows us to reach men pan-India with utmost ease. For us tiers do not matter, if there is a passionate Beardo in any part of country, we are there for him.

Q) What is the target you've set for yourself for 2021, in terms of revenue and sales and where do you want to see the brand in a few years from now?
We are aiming at a 100% growth this year. Our vision for the brand is to create a desire, where every man feels like an ALPHA - confident, attractive, and sexy. We want every man in the country to become a Beardo and truly embrace the value system that we stand for. Becoming a Beardo is not just a style statement, it is a legacy that we have successfully started, as we believe that once a beardo, always a beardo. Over the next few years, we hope to expand our offerings even more and more heavily indulge in the likes of fragrances, lifestyle products, merchandise and more.