Cycle has been the platinum sponsor of Mysore Dussehra. Can you talk about this association?
This is the first time Cycle is being associated with Mysore Dussehra on a sponsorship level. My grandfather started his business in 1948 and started creating fragrances in-house in 1950. One of the biggest milestones for him was when he won a gold medal for the fragrances he displayed at the 1953 Dussehra exhibition. It was pivotal for him and a reassurance and appreciation for the fragrances he created.
Hence, for the 75th anniversary, and Dussehra being a turning point for the brand as well, we decided to associate. To commemorate our 75th anniversary, we have not only sponsored Dussehra, but also to capture the essence of the festival, we have launched a new product called Darbari which was launched on October 19 by the Maharaja of Mysore on the birth anniversary of my grandfather.
For Navarathri the brand has been running a social media campaign named Devi #StreeShakti. Tell us more about it.
As an agarbatti brand, women are in the center of manufacturing. Rather than saying we empower women, we say we are empowered by women as a brand. Hence, for us it’s all about giving back. One thing my grandfather insisted to us is that if somebody comes to us for education, we need to lend a hand. We run a school for vision impaired girl children for almost 30 years. In Tamil Nadu we are supporting 40 specially abled girls’ education.
As part for the Devi #StreeShakthi campaign which ran for nine days, each day we celebrated Devi and her different avatars. We also did outreach programmes on each of these days through influencer marketing campaigns. We championed the ‘Devis’ within our organisation as well. We also associated with renowned dancer Rukmini Vijaykumar, and conducted a programme called ‘Celebrate the Goddess’ – local artistes and Bharatnatyam students from Chennai also participated. We are doing two more programmes, one in Bengaluru on November 10 and one in December in Hyderabad.
How big is influencer marketing for Cycle as a brand?
It’s something we started to delve into this year onwards. We never realised the power of social media until recently. We are quite shy in terms of going the social media way. We decided to start looking at it because we believe influencers who believe in the same values of Cycle have actually helped the brand. When it comes to the budget, we take it campaign by campaign. We have done a major one recently – the #PrayForIndia campaign related to the ICC World Cup.
Related to the festive season, you have recently launched Rhythm strong agarbattis and Heritage incense sticks. How was the initial consumer reaction to the products?
Heritage is a brand from 1980, but we launched a new variant to celebrate the art forms of India. It’s available digital-first for now. The initial response was good and we ran out of stock within three days. It’s very unique as a product and is available at a price point of 12 packs for Rs.1,200. We have displayed eight different artforms on the cover.
In a category that is used daily, does the festive season see a spike in sales? Is it merely the time for stocking up? If yes, how much of a spike in sales do you see during October-November? And in which categories?
Typically for us and the agarbatti industry itself in general, prayer and celebration means consumption increase. During these four months, starting from Vinayaka Chaturthi till Pongal in January (varies from state to state), the consumption increases by 30 pc.
All of the prayer categories see growth; and Iris home freshness category as well, because of the increased gifting during Diwali.
Diwali sees the highest consumption of home fragrance and lifestyle products. During Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Pooja and Diwali consumption of agarbatti and pooja samagri increases.
How is the gifting category performing during the festive season? What would be the contribution of the category to the overall revenue?
During Diwali gifting takes center stage. It’s big and we are planning to launch a gifting product in connection with the festival under the Cycle brand name.
Online is very small for us as of now; retail and modern trade are big for us. It is the fastest growing and developing. In that, gifting is a subset which is very small but it’s very exciting because we get a lot of consumer contact as they start to interact with us. The advantage of digital is that we are able to do a lot of social listening and understand the buying behaviour.
Cycle has been associated with Weekend with Ramesh, Season 5. How do you measure the ROI?
Typically, we do two activities: brand awareness building and performance marketing. All of these associations and sponsorships on the ATL side are predominantly for brand awareness. That’s why we do cricket sponsorship as well. How we measure brand awareness is through periodic surveys through IMRB and Hansa Research. We can’t quantify specific events apart from GRP and TRPs, but we measure brand awareness through market research.
Any campaigns you plan to launch?
We just finished the Navaratri campaign and the Diwali campaign will start soon. If India enters the ICC Men’s World Cup final, then that will be the biggest campaign. We have created an audio track ‘Win win India, pray for India’ and it seems to have gone viral and we have seen a good amount of people sharing it on social media. If India goes into the final, we see an opportunity to take it mainline as well.
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Also read: How Cycle rode cricket to unite India in prayer
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