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<ul><li>British cosmetics brand The <keyword id="13496722" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="body-shop" source="Orion">Body Shop</keyword> has had a presence in <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> for over 16 years now and it looks at India as a critical market.</li><li>We talk to <keyword id="812268" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="vishal-chaturvedi" source="Orion">Vishal Chaturvedi</keyword>, Vice President, The <keyword id="6362988" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="body" source="Orion">Body</keyword> Shop India who walks us through the brand's journey in India so far, its strategies that have helped it grow here and its plans for the future.</li></ul> Over the last few years, and especially in the last 2 years of the pandemic, there has been a change in the beauty industry. Despite the setback due to the pandemic, the beauty industry is going back towards normalcy. Attractive social media marketing, beauty influencers and e-commerce platforms have brought brands closer to consumers. While 2 years back, most of us would not be comfortable buying cosmetics online, the pandemic changed that, and it will help the larger market in the long-run. Another change the pandemic brought about in the minds of consumers is a move towards using brands that use more natural ingredients in their products. Consumers are also choosing to opt for brands that have a larger brand purpose. British-born, ethical cosmetics company The Body Shop has been in India for the past 16 years. It was one of the early brands that attracted consumers due to its range of naturally-inspired cosmetics and toiletry products. For years, the brand has been pioneering the philosophy that business can be a force for good, and has been launching new standards of ethics in business. In the past few years, the brand has seen healthy growth in India. While its presence on ecommerce platforms like Nykaa and now on Myntra and Amazon helped it take its products closer to its consumers, it also adopted strategies like 60 minute door-to-door delivery and WhatsApp shopping to cater to mass customers. To understand the brand’s journey in India more closely, we spoke to Vishal Chaturvedi, Vice President, The Body Shop India. He told us how the brand has fared in India in the last 16 years, its strategies that have helped it grow here and its plans for the future. Excepts: Q) Walk us through The Body Shop's journey in India. It's been 16 years since the brand entered the Indian market. How have things been? Over the years, the beauty industry has changed a lot, especially in last two years. Beauty is now breaking standard norms and redefining it as an approach to self-expression. encouraging more about ‘How you feel’ in your skin and hence breaking standard beauty norms. There is a rapid rise of beauty technology, product innovations &amp; modes of selling. It’s also noteworthy that the millennials &amp; Gen-Z are driving the change. Digital transformation and emergence of technology has driven reach and penetration. Physical retail stores continue to be the heart of consumer experience, sensorial experience, education and trust operated by human connection. Our omni-channel strategy has helped address the new emerging scenarios to address customer queries and reach them at their convenient channel. Further, consumers are actively seeking product knowledge, source of ingredients, packaging details and identifying with the brand’s core purpose. Issues related to sustainability, inclusivity, adaptability, empathy and relevance are evaluated while making purchase decisions. At the Body Shop, we have targeted focus with a robust omni-channel strategy including an overall digital and offline presence. Bringing touch-and-feel of products to digital portals and experiential stores with technology will be the beacons for the future. Further, it’s our quest to advocate for Profit with Principles while being accessible and affordable. In these times of great social and environmental inequity, we believe that our purpose has ability to bring change. Q) What has The Body Shop's marketing strategy in India been? The beauty segment has become very cluttered in the last few years. How has the brand made a place for itself in the clutter? The Body Shop is a disruptive beauty brand with an edge in the Indian market. We have constantly researched &amp; provided for the changing market trends while keeping the customer at the forefront and helping the planet. Community Programs: Our commitment to be a purpose-driven business has kept grounded to our activist roots. There is credible work done around plastics, tackling waste, packaging &amp; sustainability. World’s first community fair trade program is the core of our DNA for over 40 years. Similarly, we have worked on social activism raising the voice of less privileged communities and dealt with environmental impacts of plastic waste effectively. Communication Channels: In current times, the lines are blurring between digital &amp; physical. Beauty shopping is not restricted to one and in fact, the integration of two is a must to cater audience needs. We have focused our energies on servicing our consumers swiftly as well as digitally enabling our site to deliver an experience at par to that of our stores. Other steps include free samples of consumers’ choice on every order; Live Chats with personal skincare experts and AI driven product recommendations. Collaborations: Evidently, influencer collaborations enhance the content engagement. It also gives a window to reach audiences in varied demographics&amp; geographies. Our Chief Brand Advocate, Sanya Malhotra is self-made, independent, outspoken personality with very strong cinematic choices truly inspiring the young women of the country. She also leads The Body Shop’s SWAD (Squad with a difference) with faces from different backgrounds who come together and fuel our fight for fairer, beautiful world. Third Party Channels: Our collaboration with Nykaa for the past 8 years has proved to work wonders. And now with Amazon and Myntra we’ve made our way to even the remotest corners of the country. After the pandemic, to cater to mass customers, we started door-to-door delivery in 60 minutes and launched WhatsApp shopping. All these initiatives are working in our favor to place ourselves in the cluttered market. Q) The pandemic has thrown a lot of challenges to retail brands across the globe. How did you navigate these challenging times? The pandemic has been a period of learning for the brand. It gave us the time and chance to carefully evaluate consumer behaviour and outlook in order to plan strategically for the future. We were able to understand our customer’s needs better. We have learned to be agile and nimble. Despite the economic magnitude of the lockdown, the beauty industry may have proven to be reasonably resilient with the new emerging normal. In the past two years of the new-normal, the consumers adapted to new channels and wellness routines. Personal hygiene and beauty trends had an uptick because people spent more time on themselves. The increased awareness around beauty and self-care presented the brand with a great niche and campaigns like 'Self Care Sunday' or 'Spa at Home' were very well received by the audience. We also revamped our digital presence by building a consumer-friendly digital store that is complete with cutting-edge technology and a user-first interface. In an attempt to reach customers, we expanded our social media presence with tools to assist hands-on product experience. Digital and social channels have been at the forefront of consumer engagement Anytime, Anywhere shopping service for customers, via Social commerce, WhatsApp Shopping, Assisted Sales, Home delivery, going beyond Express Delivery to 2 hours’ delivery, Expert Chats, Live video consultations and so on. Technology played a vital role in navigating through these times by helping our customers make the right decision in absence of product touch &amp; feel experience. As a result, we are now catering an addition of 5000+ pin codes, we’re now serving over 30,000 pin codes across the country. Q) How are you expanding your retail presence? What are your plans for this year? Post pandemic the dynamics have changed. Large parts of our customers have moved towards online shopping but retail stores are the heart and soul of our brand. With things now opening up again, we are geared up to provide an even better shopping experience to our customers. The need for human connection is now stronger than before and the consumers will look for sensorial experience, physical interaction, engagement, touch &amp; feel of the products and seek personalized consultation at the stores. With this vision, we are moving ahead to open 25 new stores in 2022 in various locations. Our future plans include bringing the activism in the very heart of the brand, that is retail stores. We are excited to launch the new Activist Workshop stores where customers c<a name="_GoBack"></a>an explore and discover how they ‘can fight for a fairer and more beautiful world’. On the product front, we aim to turn completely Vegan by 2023. Additionally, we are constantly focused on making our product packaging 100% recyclable thus reducing our environmental impact. Q) How are you going deeper into the country? What kind of sales are you witnessing from smaller cities? Are you also focusing more on increasing your offline presence in Tier II and Tier III cities? Rising awareness amongst consumers, increased incomes coupled with explosion in the presence of digital platforms the demand from Tier II &amp; III cities has increased manifolds. Customers believe in buying less but buying quality. The appetite to spend in these smaller cities is increasing and customers are becoming more conscious about what to use for their skin and body. Additionally, post pandemic, a great chunk of people have shifted back to their hometowns from metro areas. However, they are still looking for their favourites for personal use. Keeping up with the need of our customers we have a robust plan of opening 25 new stores in FY 2022. 70% of these stores will be opened in other Tier II cities like Indore, Bhopal, Patna and Shimla. Q)Over the past few years, there has been a movement towards cruelty-free products. How has this helped you build your brand narrative? Since its inception in 1976, The Body Shop is a cruelty free brand. We believe and fought the cause that animals should not be used for cosmetic testing. Therefore, all the ingredients are ethically sourced and have never been tested on any animal. The Body Shop passionately believes that no animal should be harmed in the name of cosmetics and that animal testing on products and ingredients is outdated, cruel and unnecessary. This is why The Body Shop and Cruelty Free International partnered to deliver the largest and most ambitious campaign ever to seek a global ban on the use of animals to test cosmetic products and ingredients. In June 2017, The Body shop India launched itsForever Against Animal Testingcampaign with Cruelty Free International and became the first international beauty brand to campaign against animal testing in cosmetics globally. Additionally, all our products are 100% Vegetarian and over 60% of our products are 100% Vegan. This includes best-selling ranges such as the Tea Tree skincare range, Himalayan Charcoal Purifying Glow Mask, Body Yogurts and now the iconic Body Butters launched in November 2021. All our new launches are 100% Vegan. Our new haircare range is certified by The VEGAN society and packaged with fully recycled plastics The Vegan Society takes an extremely thorough approach to certification and contact is made with every supplier and manufacturer of raw materials within the product catalogue. For The Body Shop, that’s over 3,700 raw materials. Once each raw material has been meticulously investigated, each product is reviewed in totality to make sure it is fully compliant. Only then does a product receive Vegan Trademark certification. We are working toward 100% of all Products becoming Vegan by 2023 keeping in line with our commitment to reduce impact on planet. The Body Shop is one the first cosmetics brands to prohibit testing on animals, and also the first company to introduce Fair Trade to the beauty industry. Our customers appreciate the environmental friendliness &amp; social stand of the company and identify with The Body Shop in consequence. Q) What gives you an edge over other brands in the segment? We are not just a brand but a legacy. Years before The Body Shop opened its 1st store in India, The Body Shop International has had a long commitment to India and its communities. <keyword id="2755263" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="anita-roddick" source="Orion">Anita Roddick</keyword> had a connection to and faith in India. We were way ahead of many of our competitors today, to enter and make a mark in the market. With our constant efforts, we are able to sustain that relationship with our customers. We believe in assisting them in the best possible ways by understanding their needs and providing them with products that are economical and can be used guilt-free. Q) You say the brand remains staunchly feminist, one that advocates for the right of women and girls everywhere. Can you give me a few examples of the things you have done in this regard in India? In sync with the vision of our founder, The Body Shop champions equality and serves as a voice for young girls and women across the globe. We’re committed to advocate for equal rights, self-love and body acceptance as few of many social causes we fight for. Through our activism, we campaign to make the world a fair and safe place for women and girls. ●In March 2021, we started a mission to end period shame in collaboration with CRY. #DropthePword aimed at raising awareness about Periods, Period Shame, and the impact of Period Shame on India's girls &amp; women. Through this partnership, we aimed to normalize the conversation around periods and raise funds towards menstrual health and education efforts for communicating deeply affected by the pandemic. We aimed to provide menstrual health awareness, education, and free menstrual products to 10,000+ people across 4500 households. ●In October 2020, The Body Shop India partnered with Plastics for Change (PFC) India Foundation to launch project N.A.R.I (Nutrition, Ability, Retraining, Inclusion).The objective of this project was to support female empowerment and sustainability with our focus on female waste pickers, who were the invisible frontline Covid19 warriors. We have raised funds to support these women by voluntary customer donations and an equal amount was donated by us. ●With Stop Sex Trafficking of Women and Young Children, we engaged with our customers, friends, and family across the globe, we have raised awareness and funds. We were elated when India ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime including Prevention and Punishment of Trafficking, particularly Women and Children. Q) Going ahead, what will your areas of focus be to capture a bigger market share in India? How important is the Indian market for the brand in the global scheme of things? India is a country of diverse people and that is its biggest strength. We have a great diversity of faces, skin tones, beauty regimes, rituals, preferences, and regional beauty traditions, which is a unique opportunity for us. They are also well aware about the ingredients, heavily relying on digital and social media platforms and growing consumption of do-it-yourself (DIY) content. Affordability is key for the customers while demanding high levels of product innovations. As a result, we are investing in video content and reinforce it with a good-quality website. Also, we plan to leverage technology to mimic offline experiences. We use more plant-based and recycled plastic which encourages people to reuse, recycle and repurpose. Our long-term goal is to create a circular packaging strategy, which involves recycling or repurposing all of our product packaging. The customers are being transparently educated about ingredients, packaging and sustainability efforts via Omni channel strategy. Our competitive pricing strategy for India is part of an ambitious plan to expand its reach to more people and smaller cities in quick time. This makes us more affordable and more accessible amongst the millennials across the Tier II and III cities.

Here’s how The Body Shop navigated the pandemic and is growing its business in India

<ul><li>Our weekly virtual chat features some of the most loved creative heads and directors who take us on a walk down memory lane, talking about some of the most talked-about and well-appreciated ads they have worked on.</li><li>In the latest episode, <keyword id="271660" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ram-Madhvani">Ram Madhvani</keyword>, Founder and Director, Equinox Films spoke to us about Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite film, <keyword id="2510610" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Airtel-Wynk">Airtel Wynk</keyword>’s ad and Happydent’s well-known Palace campaign.</li></ul>For Ram Madhvani, Founder and Director, Equinox Films, the world of advertising has been a great teacher. While the ad world helped people meet people who have all become a very important part of his life, including his wife, Madhvani, during a recent conversation said that advertising had also taught him work ethic. “I get a sense of responsibility from the world of advertising. Here things happen on time. Apart from that, I have also learnt a lot about communicating with the audience and the idea that its about what you say, how you say it and how you make people feel. I have learnt a lot of the craft of reaching out to the public, thanks to advertising,” said Madhvani, on the latest episode of BTS with Insiders. Madhvani who is known for his feature films including Neerja and Let’s Talk is also credited with directing some of the most loved ads in recent times that include multiple ads for Airtel including Har Ek Friend Zaruri Hota Hai, DOcomo, Coca-Cola, Asian Paints and Bisleri among many others. On BTS with Insiders, Madhvani spoke about 3 ads that he holds dear. <div type="javascript" title="Facebook" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[]]></cdata></div> Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite More than a year after Amazon launched Kindle in India, it came out with a campaign to introduce Indian consumers to the e-reader through a long-form film. The ad was a celebration of people who love stories and books and depicts the joy of reading through the journey of a young man who travels to a village to leave children spellbound with the stories he narrates to them, the same stories he reads on his Kindle device. Speaking about why the campaign was special for him, Madhvani said, “Since Kindle is all about stories and filmmaking is all about stories, the Kindle film was a demo film about stories. And that’s how we sold it to the client. It was a tremendously exciting opportunity for us too. The film had amazing music by Tajdar Junaid with lyrics and the voice of <keyword id="21050" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Swanand-Kirkire">Swanand Kirkire</keyword>. The ad has been shot real, without any lights. Many of the shots have been done without permissions, even the one on the plane. I was scolded by a lady on the plane too. We wanted to make the shots real. My producers were able to set this up in a way that we were able to do this in a very small unit.” The intent was also to make the film feel real and more like a documentary. “While the ad is shot in Sri Lanka, its not meant to look like Sri Lanka. We had to shoot there because we didn’t get permission in Lakshadweep. But I have this quest for the Indian eye. I wanted to understand what an Indian aesthetic is and I realized when you’re framing stuff, apart from it being emotional, its chaotic. The West has told us about the S curve, the rule of thirds or about minimal framing. I had all these conversations with <keyword id="3945289" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="raj-deepak-das">Raj Deepak Das</keyword> who is a great motivator. He said, ‘We need a new language.’ So we decided all our frames should have foreground, mid ground and background and all the compositions are going to be chaotic,” he shared. The ad was well received and had over 5.3 million views on Amazon’s official Youtube channel in just 7 days and today Kindle is seeing a huge adoption among Indian readers. Airtel Wynk In 2014, Madhvani worked with Taproot on a campaign for Airtel’s music streaming app Wynk. The setting of the film was larger-than-life. It brought together over 700 musicians under one room and featured around 14 different genres of music. All the music featured in the ad were original compositions. The campaign also featured Sanya Malhotra. “A lot of this is thanks to Agnello Dias, Gopal Vittal and others from the marketing team of Airtel who allow us these acts of madness, believe these ideas and embrace them. That only comes due to the relationships you build with people. Great work comes from a certain creative greed and I can’t lead that. I can only smell that greed. I have realized great creative directors who want great work, people like Dias, Das, Prasoon Joshi and Sajan Raj Kurup, are all mast in their own creative zones and all I did was held on to their tail. In a way they are my co-directors,” added Madhvani. The film was shot in a day. All the musical parts were rehearsed and pre-recorded. “There were so many people, we had a lot of rushes and so many different genres of music. So it was a lot to handle. However, the entire team handled all of that really well and <keyword id="194866" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hemant-Chaturvedi">Hemant Chaturvedi</keyword>, our director of photography, gave it a rock concert feel. It was also Sanya’s first ad. She came with a completely spontaneous, unfrazzled talent and I would love to work with her again,” added Madhvani. Happydent’s ‘Palace’ In 2015, Happydent’s Palace commercial was named as one of the World's 20 best ads of the 21st century by the Gunn Report. The ad was conceptualized by Prasoon Joshi and directed by Madhvani. Speaking about how Joshi’s grand vision was executed, Madhvani said, “Its great working with Prasoon because he has a poet’s mind. It was meant to be a montage film and we had presented a commercial in Delhi which wasn’t a great commercial. And I had thought he would never give me Happydent. But it was really nice of him to trust me. I asked him if we could make a narrative film rather than a montage and he agreed. It was tough. The music was done by <keyword id="73991" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shantanu-Moitra">Shantanu Moitra</keyword> and the song was sung by Kailash Kher. Composers Vishal-Shekhar were in the next studio. When the duo came to see the commercial, they said they wanted to be a part of it. So they ended up giving the Qawwali claps in the film,” added Madhvani with a laugh. He also shared the day after the ad was released, Madhvani visited the Ogilvy office and he got a standing ovation there. “That was a really sweet moment. Also, Sameer Suneja (who is now the global CEO of Perfetti Van Melle) really supported us. We showed him an 85 as well as a 60 seconder because originally it was originally supposed to be 60 seconds long. But after watching the 85 seconder, he said he did not want to watch the other version. It took a lot of courage from the client as well as from Prasoon to back the idea and back me. So I take no credit except for just made sure that I executed it in a cussed kind of way,” explained Madhvani. While the shoot was supposed to happen in some palace in Rajasthan, it finally happened in Panvel due to lack of funds. However, that hardly affected the final outcome and the ad is still one of Happydent’s most iconic ads.

I take no credit for the Happydent Palace ad, except for making sure I executed in a cussed kind of way: Ram Madhvani

New Delhi, Feb 6 () Property brokerage firm Square Yards, which is backed by Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group, has acquired Mumbai-based rental platform Azuro as part of its expansion plan, a top company official said. Founded in 2016 by IIT Bombay alumni Altaf Ahmad, Sushant Kumar, Sudhanshu Mishra, Ayush Agrawal and Vishal Chauthmal, Azuro offers rental and property management solutions. It helps in finding a tenant, background checks, automated rent collection, property maintenance and tenant exits. The entire team of Azuro, including its co-founders, have joined Square Yards and will continue to operate under the larger umbrella with the same brand name. Square Yards founder and CEO Tanuj Shori said, "Square Yards is building an integrated intermediary ecosystem for the real estate industry and this requires the best of technology and talent. Azuro's innovative approach in grabbing market share in the large rentals and property management sector gives us opportunity to add synergies to the current value chain." "Both rentals and property management are multi-billion opportunities, but currently under-served in India. We will look forward to scaling this business in India and further globally in countries like UAE, Canada and Australia where we have a significant presence," he added. Azuro co-founder Ahmad said the company aims to catalyse the next phase of growth by leveraging Square Yards' platform using its reach, operational resources, and the consumer platform squareyards.com. Azuro has been backed by Kae Capital, Mumbai Angels, White Unicorn ventures, who will now join the cap table of Square Yards after the acquisition. Gaurav Chaturvedi, Partner at Kae Capital, said the unification is aimed at capturing a big opportunity in the O2O (offline to online) real estate services market. In India, about USD 32 billion (about Rs 2.27 lakh crore) of rent transactions take place annually and the brokerage opportunity of USD 3 billion (about Rs 21,300 crore) is expected to grow further as more consumers are inclining towards shared economy from asset ownership models. With the impending roll out of the Model Tenancy Act, 2019, Square Yards said there are bright chances for the rental housing market to not only get regulated but also ripe for disruption through the use of technology. In September, Square Yards raised USD 25 million (around Rs 175 crore) through preferential issue of equity shares to investors, including Times Group. The company has so far raised USD 50 million in equity and over USD 25 million in debt financing since its inception in 2014. Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's private equity arm had invested USD 12 million in Square Yards in November 2016. The Gurugram-based company had clocked a revenue of Rs 220 crore in the 2018-19 financial year. It reported a 56 per cent growth in revenue at Rs 75.5 crore for the second quarter of this fiscal. MJH RVK

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Here’s how The Body Shop navigated the pandemic and is growing its business in India

Samarpita Banerjee

I take no credit for the Happydent Palace ad, except for making sure I executed in a cussed kind of way: Ram Madhvani

Samarpita Banerjee

Square Yards acquires rental & property management firm Azuro

PTI

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