For more than a century, top-notch brands conceived and nourished in India have been revolutionizing our health and wellness sector. To perform consistently and uninterruptedly for decades takes intricate brand building and the guts to adapt to changes. What have these brands done to stay relevant in swiftly evolving times? How did they overcome their challenges through effective branding? Today, as we support ‘Make In India’ and ‘AtmaNirbhar Bharat’, it is all the more relevant to answer these questions. So, let us look at how India’s top 10 legendary brands stirred a change in the market.
From Red Toothpaste and Vatika Shampoo to Hajmola and Pudin Hara, Dabur has given India many evergreen daily-use products. The brand’s advertisements from the 1990s still roll off people’s tongues like they were broadcast yesterday. Plus, Dabur’s timeless, quintessentially Indian logo design – a Banyan tree representative of support and wisdom – strengthens its brand identity. The logo is so memorable that the company’s recent TV campaigns urge customers to look for it to avoid copycats. With this unique brand personality, Dabur has certainly evolved into an unforgettable and unstoppable brand.
However, this journey has not been without its challenges, especially with competition from newer Indian brands like Patanjali. But much like its logo’s Banyan tree, Dabur has weathered all challenges bravely. It has successfully rebranded itself as India’s premier producer of Ayurvedic products, strategically using the newfound ‘vocal for local’ mantra.
Hamdard is one of the oldest Indian brands that is still flourishing impeccably. This success is largely owed to its resolve to adapt to the changing times and connect with the younger generations. Take, for example, the case of Hamdard’s flagship product Rooh Afza which was launched with the company’s inception in 1906. A century later, Hamdard has reinvigorated its brand identity by introducing two new concoctions of this popular summer delight.
To further upgrade its brand strategy in the pandemic era, the company has successfully reset its marketing priorities. It has now started focusing more on digital marketing and diverted its ad campaigns to news and movie channels. This malleability makes Hamdard a great example of the Darwinian evolution of an age-old brand.
Baidyanath is a true-blue example of how to unitedly conquer a market even when the company is divided. Rather efficiently, families of Baidyanath’s two co-founders control two separate distribution regions but under the same brand identity. To ward off the stiff competition in the Ayurvedic products sector, the company even launched an e-marketplace called ‘allayurveda.com’.
Here, it not only sells Baidyanath products but also provides Ayurveda consultations from experts. Additionally, to keep up with the demands of the newer generations, the brand has rapidly expanded into the FMCG sector.
In its over nine-decade-long existence, Himalaya has thoroughly established itself as a reputed manufacturer of herbal personal care products. The brand’s name itself commands reverence and exudes formidability. To reinforce consumer confidence and trust, many of Himalaya’s newer products have “Since 1930” added to the brand name.
All its products also carry the emblem “100% Herbal Actives”. This shows how Himalaya has consistently maintained the kind of brand experience it promises its customers – totally herbal.
As one of India’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Cipla cannot promote its products through conventional means like ads on TV channels. However, it has managed to garner consumer attention with innovative digital media campaigns in recent times. It’s “#InhalersSahiHain” campaign to promote inhalation therapy for Asthma saw support from several celebrities on social media.
What better way of brand communication than integrating the social media and celebrity culture with a noble cause? Now, Cipla is weaving another brand story by expanding its scope to support the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has come up with a new rapid COVID-19 detection kit called COVI-G which gives test results in 10 minutes. This product can also be expected to generate a lot of goodwill for the brand.
Who does not remember this catchy Vicco Turmeric jingle: “Vicco Turmeric, nahi cosmetic, Vicco Turmeric ayurvedic cream!”. Interestingly, Vicco retained this beloved jingle for decades. It even showed the same 1990s ad on cinema screens even in the 2010s. Such was the power of that ad campaign.
Vicco product packaging has also retained the same basic color palette over decades, such as Vicco Turmeric’s yellow and orange. However, the company is now trying to upgrade its brand strategy to be more accessible to the youth. Indeed, Vicco’s new brand ambassador Alia Bhatt represents the brand’s attempt to associate itself with younger generations.
Khadi Natural rests upon three pillar-like brand attributes – ‘natural’, ‘Ayurvedic’, and ‘handmade’. Though many Indian brands boast of these attributes now, Khadi Natural has distinguished itself among them. With its opulently packaged products, Khadi Natural seems to be selling luxury items at low prices. This gives it a vibrant brand personality.
The sumptuous brand aura is taken forward with its many kit-based gift items. These include the ‘Luxury Spa Kit’, the ‘Refreshing Bath Kit’ and the ‘Handmade Soap Collection’, among others. Plus, to stay relevant during the pandemic, Khadi Natural has even launched a disinfectant spray and an antimicrobial vegetable wash.
Emami’s beauty, healthcare, and grooming products have inundated Indian households for decades. Several Bollywood-based ad campaigns in recent years have intimately linked this brand to many bigwig celebrities in the customers’ minds. For example, Amitabh Bachchan and Kangana Ranaut endorsed Emami’s Boroplus. Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan could be seen in the ad for Fair & Handsome.
Emami’s other unique ad campaigns have also kept its brand identity fresh. In 2019, it designed a unique ad campaign for one of its star products, Navratna Oil. The campaign involved organizing truck driver safety awareness programs while displaying Emami ads on the sides of a mobile truck. These safety awareness programs were organized in as many as eleven states, proving to be effective ways of brand communication.
With its dynamic tagline “Transforming Lives”, Vandana Luthra’s VLCC Wellness has transformed India’s beauty services and personal care products sectors. VLCC Wellness has, for decades, used its youthful brand personality to engage customers from different age groups with its products/services.
A few years ago, the company decided to rebrand itself with a new, crowdfunded logo in a first-of-its-kind move in India. To this end, it organized an online logo design contest. The contest managed to take the brand to millions of people internationally. Moreover, it reshaped the VLCC Wellness’ brand story and gave it a more customer-friendly brand identity.
Though still quite young compared to its counterparts, Biotique has become a force to reckon with in personal care products. What makes its success even more remarkable is the fact that it has refrained from traditional marketing strategies. Instead of TV ad campaigns, it has relied on word-of-mouth publicity of its products. The company did decide to alter its ‘no marketing’ approach by introducing a digital campaign not too long ago.
This has helped Biotique match and even beat its competitors by allowing it to leverage a huge export market. Plus, its tagline “Advanced Ayurveda” immediately juxtaposes India’s trusted ancient medical science with the many prospects of modern technology. This gives Biotique a universal appeal.
From the legendary brands you explored here, it is clear that brands are more than just well-designed representations of a company. They are the visual embodiment of a company’s personality. In other words, these visual embodiments also called brand identities, establish their unique presence in the eyes of customers. And a successful brand maintains this unique presence through a lasting connection with customers on a logical and emotional level.
But it takes a great brand-building process to reach such huge results. At PulsAero, we understand the nuts and bolts of the branding process. We think beyond beautiful logo designs and graphics to help brands establish a powerful and consistent communication link with their target audience.
More than that, because we are branding experts, we are familiar with dozens of long-established brands. We go deep down with our research to understand brand success and failure. How certain brands in the health and wellness industry make an eternal impact? Why some of their competitors fail to reach their audience?
These insights blended with our hands-on expertise, we create identities ****that help brands turn into household names. This means of connection alone has helped hundreds of company’s products and services to self circulate and therefore boost sales.
India’s legendary health and wellness brands offer many lessons to help emerging brands devise their own brand-building processes. Maintaining brand identities for decades, adapting to the digital era, thriving during the pandemic – these brands have managed it all.
Are you interested in standing on the shoulders of these giants and strengthen your brand strategy? Then, get in touch with PulsAero.
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