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<ul><li>The FMCG giant HUL has released its financial statement for FY21. </li><li>HUL reported a 34% increase in its turnover. </li></ul><keyword id="178761" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hindustan-Unilever-Limited">Hindustan Unilever Limited</keyword> has announced its results for the quarter and year ending 31st March 2021. As per its financial records, the FMCG giant spent Rs 4,737 crore on advertising in FY21. Broad-based performance Growth in the quarter was competitive and profitable with reported turnover growth of 34% and Profit after tax growth of 41%. Domestic consumer growth* was at 21% with underlying volume growth of 16%. Health, hygiene and nutrition forming c.80% of business grew in double-digits for the third consecutive quarter, while discretionary and out-of-home categories improved sequentially. Home Care: Home Care growth at 15% was enabled by a strong recovery in Fabric Wash. Household Care continued its strong performance delivering double-digit growth. Liquids and Fabric Sensations continue to outperform benefitting from robust market development initiatives. Beauty &amp; Personal Care: Beauty and Personal Care grew 20% with Skin Cleansing, Hair Care and Oral Care delivering high double-digit growth. Skin Cleansing performance was led by ‘Lifebuoy’ and premium segment. A calibrated approach towards price increase has helped protect our business model even as vegetable oils continue to inflate at record levels. Consumer-focused innovations and contextual communications in Hair and Oral Care continue to yield good results. Skin Care portfolio registered strong performance in Hand &amp; Body Care and Face Cleansing segments. Color Cosmetics performance improved sequentially. Foods &amp; Refreshment: Foods and Refreshment delivered another quarter of strong performance and grew at 36%. All our Tea brands continue to grow in high double-digits. Ketchups, Soups and Ice Creams also performed well with double-digit growths. Ice Creams recovery in the quarter was aided by multiple product innovations. Nutrition volumes grew in double digits and we launched Rs. 2 sachets in Horlicks and Boost. Our goal remains to drive penetration in this category. Operating margins: EBITDA margins at 25% remain healthy. Profit after tax at Rs 2,143 Crore increased by 41%. HUL will continue to invest behind its brands and portfolio, and in future-fit capabilities. According to its statement to the press, HUL's focused actions on net revenue management and savings have enabled the compnay to manage inflationary pressures and deliver a healthy bottom-line performance.<a name="m_6766058920235297106__Hlk31014716"></a> Financial Year 2020-21: Growth competitive and profitable Turnover at Rs 45,311 Crores grew by 18%, Domestic Consumer Growth* was 6%. Profit after tax at Rs 7,954 Crores was up 18%. We managed COVID challenges well and sustained strong cash generation. The Board of Directors have proposed a final dividend of Rs 17 per share, subject to approval of shareholders at the AGM. Together with interim dividend of Rs 14 per share, the total dividend for the financial year ending 31st March 2021 amounts to Rs. 31 per share. During the year, a special dividend of Rs. 9.5 per share was also paid. Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director commented, “Our in-quarter performance was strong on both the top-line and bottom-line. Despite challenging times, in FY’21 our business ecosystem has withstood the disruption and demonstrated agility and resilience across the value chain. We have delivered on our multi stakeholder business model. Our purpose-led brands and capabilities were further strengthened during the year and this positions us well to serve our consumers during this turbulent period. Our focus firmly remains behind delivering volume-led competitive growth. The recent surge in COVID cases is of serious concern and ensuring safety and wellbeing of people remains our top priority. We will continue to work closely with governments, health authorities and our partners to support the needs of the society and the Nation to overcome this adversity. #HULStandsWithTheNation” * excluding the impact of merger of GSK CH and acquisition of ‘VWash’<table align="left" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr></tr></tbody></table>

HUL spent Rs 4,737 crore on advertising in FY21, saw a 41% increase in profit after tax

<ul><li><keyword id="6888422" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sebamed" source="Orion">Sebamed</keyword>'s comparative advertising last year against <keyword id="44863" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="hul" source="Orion">HUL</keyword> soap brands including <keyword id="119472" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lux" source="Orion">Lux</keyword>, Pears and <keyword id="94301" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="dove" source="Orion">Dove</keyword> got it noticed by consumers.</li><li>We speak to <keyword id="17535" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shashi-ranjan" source="Orion">Shashi Ranjan</keyword>, Country Head, Sebamed to understand how its strategy of targeting other brands in the category has worked for it.</li><li> Ranjan tells us the brand's campaigns have helped it win the trust of huge number of consumers who are looking for 'highly efficacious and scientifically superior products'.</li></ul>When it aired its campaign targeting some of HUL’s market leading soap brands including Lux, Pears and Dove in January 2021, German personal care brand Sebamed made quite a splash. It had taken on the biggest soap manufacturer in the country, to demonstrate the ‘superior benefit of Sebamed’s cleansing bar over market leaders in the soap category’, a claim that had later been rebutted by HUL. Following the launch of the campaigns, HUL had filed a commercial suit in the Bombay High Court, and alleged that Sebamed’s campaigns were ‘misleading consumers on soap efficacy during these difficult times, and further denigrating and disparaging well-known brands like Lux, Dove, Pears and Rin’. The Bombay High Court later permitted Sebamed to continue with its campaign for its cleansing bar. Despite the legal backlash, the brand and its comparative advertising was written about by numerous media outlets, which turned out to be great PR for the brand. It had the desired effect, getting a relatively new brand noticed by consumers. Later in the year, Sebamed released another campaign, this time drawing consumers’ attention towards misleading advertising by various hair care brands titled #NoConditionsApply. A year since the launch of its talked-about campaign, we caught up with Shashi Ranjan, Country Head, Sebamed, to understand how its strategy worked for the brand and how it has been educating consumers about the benefits of using its products and building a market for itself. Excerpts: Q) Sebamed has had a very different advertising approach. How do you think that has helped in its brand building in India? We are a purpose-driven organization, and we strive to transform the Indian <keyword id="34523" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="fmcg" source="Orion">FMCG</keyword> landscape. By leveraging the power of honest and transparent advertising, we are empowering consumers with the right knowledge backed by scientifically verifiable facts and realistic claims. We want consumers to make informed choices about their consumption habits and our advertisements narrate the story in a unique and palatable way. Our differentiated approach to advertising has introduced a new vocabulary of pH and generated a buzz in the personal care category. It has nudged consumers to challenge the status quo and question claims around standard beauty practices and provide them with science-backed facts instead, and as a result, build a strong connection with Sebamed. We have been able to win the trust of huge number of consumers who are looking for highly efficacious and scientifically superior products. Q) What sort of reception have your ads received? They did the work of getting the brand noticed but did that translate to sales? We are overwhelmed by consumer responses after every campaign. It really gives a surreal feeling that consumers wait for our advertisements as every category we get into we impart new knowledge and most importantly something they can trust and validate. In addition to disruptive awareness, our advertisements have resulted into exponential increase in our revenue as well. Our annualized portfolio run rate is Rs 600 crore in MRP terms. We remain committed towards investing in brand building as a full-stack player. We continue to strive for share of affinity of our consumers and it has been overwhelming since inception. Q) What sort of growth have you witnessed since you launched your campaign? We are on an exponential growth path and have grown 5X in the last 3 years. In fact, some of the subcategories in personal care have grown more than 10X post the campaign. Q) How did the pandemic impact the business? Where do you stand now? Like any other FMCG player we were also impacted by the first wave of pandemic during Apr-June’20 quarter. However, we have managed to bounce back and are now on our growth trajectory. We witnessed ~40% growth on our overall portfolio vis-à-vis 2019 despite the pandemic. We used this as an opportunity to realign our Marketing, Sales, Distribution &amp; People strategy.We managed to bounce back after a quarter and are now back on our growth trajectory.Hence, the silver lining is, despite pandemic our exponential growth journey continues.Our offline sales have grown around 50% over last year itself. Q) For any relatively new brand, sampling plays an important role. With people stuck in their homes, how have you been able to take the brand to people's homes? How are you ensuring the brand stays top-of-mind for your consumers? Sampling has been a key enabler to induce trial for consumers across all categories and we have leveraged this since the beginning. During pandemic when people were stuck at home, we partnered with hyper local delivery partners as well as some society activation partners to take the experience to consumers’ home. Further recently we have also launched Sebamed shampoo sachet at Rs 10 to encourage trials. Today all Sebamed shampoos – Anti Hairloss, Anti-Dandruff and Everyday are available at Rs 10. We have also started seeing early trends on increasing revenue contribution of Tier II and Tier III cities for Sebamed products. Q) How important has e-commerce been for you? The world-wide pandemic has turbocharged ecommerce transition for FMCG companies. With the touchless economy and safety conscious consumers, we have witnessed a strong preference towards ecommerce during the pandemic and it’s going to continue in the long run as well. Ecommerce has been a key growth driver for us, and we have further enhanced our presence by partnering with quick commerce players as well in addition to traditional ecommerce players. In fact, we have taken an emphatic approach to set up our own ecommerce platform mywellnesskart.com during the first wave of the pandemic to ensure our products are made available to consumers amid logistic disruptions. Q) What's your marketing budget for the year? Will you be increasing spends this year? Which medium will get the largest chunk of the marketing pie? Our marketing budget is commensurate with our growth aspirations. We have grown our marketing budget by 3X over last 3 years. We remain committed towards investment in brand building as a full stack FMCG player and strive for consumer’s share of affinity towards our brands. Our current split between traditional and digital marketing is 50:50 and we will continuously evaluate the same and pivot it around consumer’s behavioral shift. Q) Going ahead too, will the brand continue focusing on competitive advertising or do you plan to modify your strategy? We invest a lot in understanding our consumers. Keeping the evolving consumer needs in mind, our advertising approach has been focused on building long-term trust with the consumers – there is no short-cut to gaining trust. This requires consistent effort. Competitive advertisement is just one tool in the marketing playbook. Every category has different objective and advertisement strategy would differ accordingly; however our brand purpose will remain consistent as the common denominator across every segment we operate. Q) Sebamed has positioned itself as a brand that empowers consumers with the right information on the basis of scientifically verifiable facts and realistic claims. Apart from your campaigns, how else are you educating consumers, since it takes a change in behaviour for people to opt for a new shampoo/soap instead of products they have been using for years? After the pandemic, basic health and hygiene choices are being re-evaluated. We strive to educate our consumers about the benefits of pH5.5 products for healthy skin and hair and impact of using conventional products. pH is a relatively new conversation in the personal care segment, and we are aware that persuading consumers to opt for a new shampoo/soap instead of products they are using for years is a journey. In order to expedite the transition process, in addition to integrated campaigns we are following a 3-pronged approach: -Offering free pH test kits to consumers, so they can test themselves at their homes -Offering free customized skin and hair solutions by our experts through our portal -Sampling and society activation initiatives Q) What is your strategy towards increasing your marketing spend? What is the growth strategy you are going to follow? -Brand building is a journey and we are committed to ramp up our marketing investments in alignment with our aspirations. -We will continue to focus on five key transformational pillars – people, differentiated products, branding, rapid distribution expansion and robust governance. Q) What kind of revenue target do you have for 2022? We are here for the long haul, we plan to grow 10X in the next 5 years, hence we aspire to grow exponentially in 2022 as well, pretty much the way we have grown over the last 3 years.

Our differentiated approach to advertising has nudged consumers to challenge the status quo and question claims around standard beauty practices: Shashi Ranjan, Sebamed

<ul><li>Price cuts impacted sales of FMCG majors in Q3, even as they were able to stem market share losses.</li><li>Slow offtake of products have also led to liquidity constraints in the general trade channel.</li><li>General trade accounts for two-thirds of FMCG sales, and their troubles are another roadblock for volume recovery. </li></ul>For most of the ongoing financial year, i.e. FY24, fast moving consumer goods players have been waiting for an uptick in rural sales. That never came, even in the third quarter (Q3), despite the onset of the festive season. High competitive intensity continues to persist, leading brokerages to cut their earnings estimates, as they see general trade troubles to add to the pressures, for the next few quarters. The management commentaries have not been encouraging either. The recovery of rural markets, which contribute to 45% of total FMCG sales, is linked to many uncertainties. “Due to lower agriculture yields and uncertainty of future crop outputs, rural consumer sentiment remains subdued. Consequently, the anticipated buoyancy from the festive season did not materialize. The dualism we've seen in the recent past continues with certain parts of the market recovering faster than the rest,” said <keyword id="20038672" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rohit-jawa" source="keywords">Rohit Jawa</keyword>, CEO of HUL in an earnings concall. Lowered estimates HUL’s volumes grew 2% in Q3, but its value growth fell marginally by 0.3%. This was due to price cuts they had to take, especially in home care and personal wash segments. Brokerages have been disappointed with its festive quarter performance, even as it was able to stem market share losses with pricing interventions. “We believe demand slowdown, competitive pressure, distribution stress, and rising royalty rates are likely to have an overhang on HUL’s valuations. Management commentary on demand setting remains unexciting, as demand recovery remains a hope on the emergence of tailwinds,” said a report by Emkay which cut its earnings estimates by 3% for FY24 to FY26. Marico also saw subdued growth in its core portfolio of Parachute and Saffola. They saw flat to slight decline in value growth, due to price cuts and heavy local competition. The company also said that there is ‘no visible buoyancy seen in consumer sentiment’. “We expect overall demand trends to be subdued with no visible improvement affecting volume trajectory in Q4FY24. We expect domestic business to witness muted volumes due to stock reduction undertaken across the portfolio,” Nuvama said. It cut Marico’s FY24 earnings per share estimates by 2.1%, and revised its price to earnings multiples to 38x from 42x earlier. In addition to price growth, most companies had to grow their advertising and marketing budgets in double digits to fight off competition. But their robust expansion in margins due to sharp reduction in input prices helped absorb the impact. Going forward, analysts see A&amp;P costs remain elevated, while there has been a sequential upward movement in commodities like wheat, sugar etc. General trade troubles Slow offtake of FMCG products has had a far reaching impact on the general trade channel as well. General trade channels account for 75-78% of FMCG sales in India, as per a report by Bizom. It has been facing problems of its own, as sluggish demand has led to slow movement of goods. Retailers have been unable to pay up distributors due to liquidity constraints, increasing the credit cycle. A weak trade channel can be another roadblock for FMCG majors who are planning to grow their volumes. <keyword id="20374430" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="saugata-gupta" source="keywords">Saugata Gupta</keyword>, CEO of Marico too pointed out problems with general trade, and that they’re working to rejuvenate it. “General trade channel is instrumental in restoring pace in volume growth. We are seeing how we can improve return on investment (RoI) for our partners, and facilitate higher credit. We are also looking to diversify our portfolio in general trade,” said Gupta in an earnings concall. Marico’s efforts are expected to bear fruit only in the next financial year. In the meanwhile, brokerages consider it an overhang on the business. “We expect general trade to continue to suffer liquidity and profitability constraints leading to ROI challenges faced by channel partners due to weak structural growth,” says Nuvama. HUL too has made changes in its approach to general trade. It has revamped its margins for distributors recently, cutting fixed margins and increasing variable margins in the top 100 cities. At its earnings call, the company said it has not seen any adverse impact of it as yet. It defended its decision saying that it’s a future-ready margin structure. “We have incentivized distributors in big cities to essentially sell more, of course, but importantly also to service more stores, service and deliver them the next day and to sell more lines, especially more on market development of premium lead lines or more assortment, or more width. We saw, therefore, a better served <keyword id="20401784" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="kirana-store" source="keywords">kirana store</keyword>,” <keyword id="20194350" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="jawa" source="keywords">Jawa</keyword> said. The company has also been reaching out to retailers directly via its <keyword id="20401783" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shikar" source="keywords">Shikar</keyword> app, and has even deployed more feet on the street. As per media reports, it serves around three million outlets directly. Yet, analysts see general trade troubles as an added challenge for HUL. “Reinforcing the general trade moat is now an added pressure, with changes in distributor margin structure,” said Emkay. With added challenges and muted sentiment, the road to recovery has only become slower for FMCG players.

New troubles pile on FMCG majors as they await consumption uptick

According to Microsoft <keyword id="5645" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="CEO">CEO</keyword> <keyword id="276564" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Satya-Nadella">Satya Nadella</keyword>, the current global situation can be divided into three phases -- the pre-Covid era, the lockdown and recovery. However, none of these phases are linear -- as new Covid-19 strains are emerging, a few countries are heading back to lockdown. Some others have started vaccinating. With many looming uncertainties, the year of 2021 would leave businesses in a state of upheaval. But many believe that it would pave the way for a better world ahead. The business leaders or <keyword id="609639" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="CXOs">CXOs</keyword> will have to either keep up with the disruption or stay ahead in order to survive. Here are a few mantras that CXOs might have to include in their New Year resolution list this year. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="CEOs" comment="subhead" text="CEOs">CEOs</cmsannotation> The <a href="https://twitter.com/TataCompanies/status/1341361177570361344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1341361177570361344%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesstoday.in%2Fcurrent%2Fcorporate%2Fin-letter-to-tata-staff-chandrasekaran-says-thank-you-talks-of-opportunities-for-renewal%2Fstory%2F425707.html">Chairman of Tata Group N Chandrasekaran </a>extended the ownership and responsibility of the big changes with all his employees. As “rules are being rewritten”, he said, new opportunities are akin to a bridge. “But it is a special kind of bridge because we are not simply waiting to see what happens on the other side. Instead, we have a hand in building our own destination,” he said. <div type="twitter" handle="TataCompanies" handlename="Tata Group" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1289024769656905729/UQo4NKUK_normal.jpg" favoritecount="716" retweetcount="113" status="Message from our Chairman N. Chandrasekaran for the New Year 2021. #ThisIsTata https://t.co/OgFYNfxEJY" createdat="1608640400000" id="1341361177570361344"></div> Referred to as India’s corporate disruptor-in-chief, Anand Mahindra the chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra group of companies said that <a href="https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/mahindra-mahindra-set-for-a-reboot-and-how/77413794">Covid-19 gave them a unique opportunity</a> to reboot by winding up loss making businesses to focus on what can yield them benefits going ahead. Organizations like Dr Reddy’s Laboratories also seemed to have made up their mind to weave in volatility into their 2021 performance. “We believe FY2021 will have more uncertainties than ever before. Consequently, our overall performance may be quite volatile," Dr Reddy's Laboratories said in its <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/performance-may-be-quite-volatile-in-fy21-due-to-coronavirus-dr-reddy-s-120070600492_1.html">latest annual report</a>. It seems like all the top leaders had embraced the upheaval that the pandemic has caused and turned 2021 into ‘the year of rebuilding’. To ensure that, the leadership has to brace for surprises, make agile plans and make room for the many uncertainties that are very likely to come. A few pointers that would help them in the way, would be: <ul><li>The first is to make agile plans that can be amended easily to weave in uncertainty.</li><li>The new year should be about making fresh plans and not just about building on existing structures.</li><li>The digital way of doing things should be woven into the framework. One such way would-be smart outsourcing right from marketing to advertising to hiring.</li><li>As the world shifts to the work-from-home mode, technology and security budgets should be expanded.</li><li>The top leadership should turn a little ‘hands-on’ to make more virtual appearances more often to motivate the remote workforce.</li></ul><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="CFOs" comment="subhead" text="CFOs">CFOs</cmsannotation> Srinivas Phatak, the head of finance of HUL adopted a “follow the money” strategy during the pandemic. “Gone are the days where you can think about an innovation in a timeframe of nine months. The new normal is nine weeks. And how well can we do it? These are the kind of things we'll have to get better at in 2021,” <a href="https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2020/dec/hindustan-unilever-cfo-srinivas-phatak-indian-market-growth.html">he said</a>. The CFOs are also coining a new designation for themselves called ‘change agents’. “CFOs will have to bring new ideas on the table both within and outside their finance function,” said Rahul Malhotra, <a href="https://cfo.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/empathy-should-be-on-top-of-cfos-mind-in-2021/80067564">finance chief of Integreon</a>. Some pointers for them would be: <ul><li>They would have to make structural changes to the finance function to support fast-paced transformation.</li><li>Since organizations need to move faster, they would have to have less baggage. That would mean leaner credit profiles with refinanced debt at bargained interest rates.</li><li>The inventory levels must also come down to keep pace with fast changing demand and supply dynamics.</li><li>CFOs must make way for higher R&amp;D budgets that would ensure innovation matches market speed.</li><li>The finances of a company would have to be much more transparent. It will come under constant review to gauge the success of the many launches and changes.</li><li>To support change at an organizational level, CFOs will have to ensure funds keep flowing in and that would require streamlining investments and divestments.</li></ul><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="COOs" comment="subhead" text="COOs">COOs</cmsannotation> COOs will have to bring technology and operations together, as organizations adopt digital modes of working. <ul><li>They need to play many roles including motivating the workforce, and re-building logistics for new products and projects.</li><li>This year, most companies would tighten budgets. Hence, COOs will have to increase operational efficiency by adopting analytics and other digital tools to lower costs.</li><li>They would have to build a ‘human connect’ while adopting automation to ensure employees accept digitization.</li><li>This is especially important as they would have to re-think hiring and maintain a skeleton structure that would align with changed cost dynamics in 2021.</li><li>They would also have to re-think physical assets like offices in the wake of a new normal.</li></ul><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="CIOs/CTOs" comment="subhead" text="CIOs/CTOs">CIOs/CTOs</cmsannotation> As remote working becomes the new normal, CIOs and CTOs should assume the new role as quasi-COOs who would ensure business continuity. Most CIOs are betting on managed services which can ensure that they can transition to the new role with extended responsibilities. "With the focus growing more on digital, leaning on managed services ensures that domain experts help you with the scaling as you focus on your core competency," said Radhakrishna Pillai, CIO of SRL Ltd. <ul><li>They should drive change in communication strategies to ensure remote working does not affect productivity.</li><li>They will have to drive creation of new products and assets with insights from big data, smart data and analytics.</li><li>The data sets themselves could be converted into products that can bring in revenue.</li><li>They will also play an active role in innovation as organizations tilt towards cloud-first and digital-first strategies.</li><li>Managed services, with providers like <a href="http://bit.ly/INTBI1">INT. (Indus Net Technologies)</a> ensure uptime guarantee, proactive support and SLA driven response and resolution.</li><li>If digital is the game, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the new domain.</li></ul><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="CMOs" comment="subhead" text="CMOs">CMOs</cmsannotation> In 2021, CMOs will drive sales electronically where consumers have no sense of ‘touch and feel’. They would have to beef up virtual experiences and make selling ‘smarter’. And all this while building a deeper emotional connect with the consumer. “With a digital-first mindset, there’s a good opportunity to be smarter about using data to make sure that our touchpoints with customers are intentional, mindful, and impactful. For marketers, smart use of data and AI delivers personalization, and personalization drives growth,” said Stephanie Buscemi, the global CMO of Salesforce. <ul><li>For long, customers have been demanding customization and in 2021, it will only amplify. With the power of big data, it is now possible to divide customer pools into thinner and thinner segments for relevant offerings.</li><li>Micro-segmentation can help identify new needs and improve return on investments for digital advertising.</li><li>But perhaps, CMOs shouldn’t miss the woods for the trees. INT ensures that micro-segmentation is a part of the integrated digital marketing. It devises end-to-end strategies using the right tools and a process in the right order for the best outcome.</li><li>Outsourcing key marketing functions to match the speed of product innovation and shorter product-to-market cycles, will also increase as the world embraces the new normal.</li></ul>Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post in partnership with Indus Net Technologies.

21 things that CXOs might have to do differently in 2021

<ul><li>The <keyword id="12257603" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="whole-truth" source="Orion">Whole Truth</keyword>, a health food brand, has dedicated its marketing efforts to telling the world the truth about its food and busting common food marketing myths to help consumers lead healthier lifestyles.</li><li>The Whole Truth’s latest campaign addresses the issue of misleading influencer marketing.</li><li>Its campaign ‘The Whole Truth Sayers’ is a clarion call to all Honest Influencers who only endorse what they actually use and love. And whose opinions can’t be bought with money.</li><li>As consumers moved to influencers, so did marketing dollars. And for the right price, experts started selling their influence, rather than telling the truth.</li><li>To fix this broken system, TWT has launched The Whole Truth Academy Project where they want ‘real’ influencers to tell the truth about their products. 25 honest influencers will be shortlisted by a jury who will narrate The Whole Truth later in their own ways.</li></ul>Over the last two decades, social media has become a huge part of our lives. After the recent Facebook outage, the world realised how dependent we are on social media platforms. While the six-hour outage only highlighted the tip of the iceberg, it is becoming more and more clear now that social media platforms have become an extended part of our body and existence. Due to this heavy reliance of consumers on digital media, influencer marketing has seen a huge boost and has become an integral marketing tool for advertisers to connect with their audiences on a daily basis. According to GroupM INCA, the <keyword id="11333696" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="influencer-marketing-industry" source="Orion">influencer marketing industry</keyword> will be a Rs 900 crore market in India by the end of 2021. So, there’s no doubt that influencers are heavily embedded in consumers’ day-to-day lives and gaining more attention from advertisers by the hour. However, influencer marketing started out with a revolutionary idea. It aimed to alter the celebrity-dominated advertising and marketing industry, create more space for honesty and do away with false, exaggerated claims made in traditional ads. The digital stars wanted to fade out fake reviews, connect with consumers on a personal level and eradicate the ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude in the industry. It was more about a few creative consumers talking to other consumers about brands they love and make marketing a tad accessible. In a short span of time, influencers forgot their mission statement and capitalism took over. The most earnest, honest reviews on the internet can be bought today and only brands with bigger money bags can afford to be portrayed as the most honest brand in the ad world. To debunk this system that has gotten a ‘bit corrupt,’ The Whole Truth’s Co-founder and CEO <keyword id="274057" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shashank-mehta" source="Orion">Shashank Mehta</keyword> has launched a new campaign titled ‘The Whole Truth Sayers.’ He is on the lookout for an honest batch of influencers who could represent his brand, help change the influencer marketing and revert it to its original form. <div type="Youtube" id="4Y_bXd03gpM" title="The Whole Truth of Influencer Marketing" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4Y_bXd03gpM/mqdefault.jpg"></div> In a 5-minute long film, Mehta and The Whole Truth team audition a bunch of influencers. Mehta asks, “Will these people promote our brand? Who are these people and why are they famous” And then, sitting across the table, Mehta watches influencers showcase their talent and pitch their ideas. They put more effort into their content for more marketing dollars. In a monologue, he later goes on to talk about how influencer marketing came into play as the answer to inauthentic celebrity marketing but has turned into a marketing gimmick in recent times. For the right price, experts started selling their influence, rather than telling the truth and influencer marketing thus became the problem it was meant to solve. The video is conceptualised by The Whole Truth and Gursimran Khamba’s Lights@27. It is being launched in collaboration with Big Bang Social, an influencer marketing agency, who also resonated with campaign’s problem statement. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Behind The Whole Truth and its latest campaign" text="Behind The Whole Truth and its latest campaign">Behind The Whole Truth and its latest campaign</cmsannotation> <div type="Video" msid="86830239" hostid="261" title="Behind The Whole Truth’s latest campaign that aims to reveal the truth behind misleading influencer marketing" dataSource="BUSINESSINSIDER" thumbUrl="https://denmark.timesinternet.in/cmslite/api/app/images.jpg?msid=86830239"></div> It all started when The Whole Truth raised $6 million in a series A round led by Sequoio Capital. After acquiring enough capital to take their marketing to the next level, Mehta realised that there’s a problem with how influencer marketing functions today. “The honest truth behind this campaign is that we wanted to do influencer marketing. We recently raised a round of funding, we had some money in the bank now and we thought we'll do influencer marketing but the more we dived into it, we realised there doesn't seem to be an honest way of doing it. And the current way it was being done, in most places not all, didn't sit well with the brand. So we were caught in a dilemma of either we just walk away from it saying that hey, this is not for us, or we do something about it. And we realised that usually whenever we've taken people behind the scene and shown them the whole truth of anything, they resonate with what we are saying. So, we thought that hey, maybe the way to do influencer marketing for us is first bring out what's going on which it seems like a lot of people resonate with and then mount our own attempt at doing this in an honest, truthful manner on top of this video,” shared Mehta. So, the video is a clarion call to all Honest Influencers who only endorse what they actually use and love. And whose opinions can’t be bought with money or as Mehta calls them, ‘TWT’s Truthsayers.’ With this, The Whole Truth aims to not only highlight the problem, but it is giving out a solution. It has launched a contest, wherein it is inviting influencers to make a fun reel, giving the jury an insider view of the problem. 25 influencers will be shortlisted later by a marketing expert jury consisting of Gursimran Khamba, Varun Duggirala of The Glitch, Vani Gupta Dandia of CherryPeachPlum, to name a few. Later, The Whole Truth will pay for the influencer’s art, hard work and talent - not their opinion. Any equipment fees, production fees, location costs etc, (within a pre-agreed budget) will be taken care of. TWT will not influence the influencer’s opinion or interfere with their art. Neither will they give a brief or push pre-set scripts. Whether the Truth-Sayers choose to make a video or write a blog or make a podcast to introduce The Whole Truth to their followers - the brand will offer complete support. And zero intervention. The process of finding TWT Truthsayers is quite simple. “So we have a two step process, one is we're asking them to apply. The application is a fun thing where we're asking them to make a story or a reel and show us the whole truth of influencer marketing as they see it. And that becomes their participation. Which gets shortlisted to the top 50 people by our panel of judges and we have a very, very respected panel of judges. They will shortlist it down from 50 people to 20-25 eventually we're just going to send them our products and ask them to write us a note about what they liked, what they didn't like right and and whoever falls in love and says that you know I love this brand and these are the 10 reasons why I loved what you did or the only people you work with,” explained Mehta. However, the film is 5-minute long and we all know how infamous millennials and GenZ are for their short attention span, who are all the target group for this campaign. Marketing gurus advise brands to place their product in the first 30 seconds of the advertisement and The Whole Truth’s latest campaign doesn’t follow that thumbrule either. Mehta said that it was a conscious decision to make a long ad. Sharing the reason why, Mehta said, “When we wrote the script, we didn't write it as an ad. That's why you will see that there is very little of the brand. But yeah, it's a it's a long video, given attention spans nowadays. We took that conscious call because we didn't want to make a superficial half-hearted point. We wanted to be do justice to both the problem and at the end, our take on the solution and why we believe things are not the way they should be, etc. And again, the hope is that, when a AIB or TVF come out with a 10-20 minute videos, because the content is so good people do watch through it. So let's see, whether we are thinking too much of our content and people will drop off or will it be engaging and relevant enough for them to watch through -- that's the punt we've taken, but we were very clear that we don't want to do a half-hearted superficial ad-ey job of it was for us, it's not an ad, we're not like promoting a product in this.” Considering that The Whole Truth is calling out an industry for its divergence from an ethical path, there’s a good chance that this campaign will cause a controversy. In today’s time, it doesn’t take much to boycott a brand. Influencers also have a cult following now and there are always some fans who wouldn't watch 'The Whole Truth' and just jump to conclusions by reading a video’s caption or watching an ad for a few seconds with context. Mehta candidly told us that he is worried about this. He said, “It's something that worries us, but we don't know what to do about it. If someone doesn't listen to our whole point of view, and reacts to half baked information, then it does become difficult.” <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="The Whole Truth in the making" text="The Whole Truth in the making">The Whole Truth in the making</cmsannotation> Before launching The Whole Truth, Mehta was working with FMCG giant HUL. He told us that he wanted to launch his own food brand because he has fallen for the lies told by foodbev brands and his body has suffered through enough ups and downs due to the false claims made on food packaging and dishonest FMCG advertisements. So, in The Whole Truth’s maiden campaign, it started by dropping a giant truth bomb about the FMCG industry and its marketing techniques. Titled ‘Our Food is Screwed’ was inspired from The Dollar Shave Club ad and aimed to bust food myths and inconvenient food labelings. <div type="Youtube" id="cT-rTkvhLNo" title="Our Food is Screwed | What Food Companies Don't Want You to Know | #TheWholeTruth" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cT-rTkvhLNo/mqdefault.jpg"></div> The Whole Truth was only 9-months-old and everyone was talking about its campaign. It takes a start-up at least a few years of investment rounds to use the right marketing tools to gain popularity and some media coverage. The Whole Truth was quick to rise to fame, thanks to Mehta’s marketing background. So, we asked Mehta, if he were to give a TedTalk on what helped the start-up gain media attention and become a popular consumer brand in a short time, he said, “TedTalk, I’m not sure of, but the one big learning is do something which is purpose driven. I think it speaks to people, when you're doing something for a fundamental reason, which is beyond just money, profit and fame. Like for us, the mission is to bring honesty back to foods. And that mission comes from a very personal plce because I've suffered at the hands of incorrect and dishonest food marketing, I had to go through multiple weight gain and loss cycles when I used to think that switch from that unhealthy cola to this healthy juice or switch from that unhealthy paratha or that my mom makes in the morning to breakfast cereals. And then I realized that actually, the breakfast cereal is much worse than my mom's parathas and, and the juice has the same amount of sugar as that coke does. So, that's betrayal, that feeling of being lied to, no one likes. Hence, the mission comes from deeply personal space. And I think consumers resonate with that -- they can see that these guys are out not to make a quick buck that they're out to change the world in small but meaningful ways. So that would be my big learning. When you do that, consumer love, fame and revenues -- all of that starts falling in place.” Going forward, The Whole Truth will be on the lookout for expansion opportunities. It started as a protein bar and aims to expand into different food and health sub-categories. Mehta has an interesting approach to decide company’s next foray. “Our focus areas are very clear. We intend to go on getting into different food categories where we see that consumers today are being lied to and create a product that lives up to the whole truth philosophy, so for example, till eight, nine months ago, we were only making protein bars, then we launched a range of muesli, peanut butters in another two, three months. We're gonna launch another food category in five months from then we launch another food category. So our mission is simple. We just take different food categories, we check whether currently, most of the brands there are offering 100% clean label food, or are they lying to consumers? And unfortunately, the answer in most turns out to be the latter. And then we start trying to formulate a product that lives up to The Whole Truth philosophy because we don't have any option, we have to declare each and every ingredient on the front of it, so that takes a little while. So that remains the focus not just the next half, but the foreseeable future, too,” told he. Mehta told us that the brand will keep on unearthing the 100% honest truth of anything that touches food or food marketing in the future as well.

The Whole Truth’s latest campaign aims to reveal the truth behind misleading influencer marketing

One more name added to the growing list of Indians who have been given opportunity to lead multi-national <keyword id="34523" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="fmcg">FMCG</keyword> companies. Consumer products manufacturer <keyword id="80626" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Colgate-Palmolive">Colgate-Palmolive</keyword> Co has appointed <keyword id="784954" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mukul-Deoras">Mukul Deoras</keyword> as its <keyword id="2582500" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="global-chief-marketing-officer">global chief marketing officer</keyword>. 

	Deoras has been working as the president of Colgate-Palmolive's Asia operations, a post being offered to Vinod Nambiar, people aware of the development told the Economic Times. 
 

	IIM Ahmedabad alumnus Deoras will be responsible for about $2-billion advertising budget of Colgate-Palmolive from this month. 
 

	The world's largest toothpaste maker, Colgate-Palmolive is focusing more on emerging markets, where per capita usage of toothpaste is low, and making a transition towards more visibility in digital media. Its revenue was flat at $17.3 billion last year. 
 

	The development brings three Indians to the top deck at the American major — Deoras, Nambiar and Prabha Parameswaran, who is president at the company's Africa and Eurasia division. All three executives have earlier worked in senior roles at Colgate-Palmolive India. 
 Nambiar's former role of heading the company's China operations is being taken over by <keyword id="2929744" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Arvind-Sachdev">Arvind Sachdev</keyword>, who was earlier general manager for Colgate-Palmolive's North Africa-Middle-East hub in the Africa Eurasia division. 

	A Colgate-Palmolive spokesperson has confirmed the development to the financial daily. 
 

	According to a Colgate-Palmolive shareholder presentation in May, the firm plans to earmark 20-25% of its marketing budget for digital media. As per the presentation, Colgate globally leads the toothpaste market with around 45.2% share, while in the toothbrush segment it has around 33.8% share. In India, Colgate leads the toothpaste market with 54.6% share. 
 Deoras, who had joined Colgate in 2004 from <keyword id="6365619" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Hindustan-UniLever">Hindustan Unilever</keyword> (HUL), has held several top positions in the company—director (special projects) for Asia Pacific region, general manager for Thailand operations, vice-president of personal care business in the parent company at the US, and managing director of Indian operations in 2010. He is currently chairman of the Indian subsidiary. 
	(Image: Indiatimes)

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