Asian Paints: From A Small Garage To A Leading Paint Company In India With Genius Marketing Strategies

Asian Paints has consistently been at the forefront of innovation by anticipating future trends, whether it was creating their debut television commercial in 1984 or implementing call center operations and launching a website as early as 1998-99.

Asian Paints was started in a small garage by four friends- ChimanlalChoksi, Suryakant Dani, Champaklal Choksey, and Arvind Vakil in 1942. The company was started as there were prohibitions on paint import during the Second World War and the Quit India movement. Though the company was born in a time of struggle, it has been consistently profitable for several decades now, and even in 1952, it had an annual turnover of INR 23 crores. However, it was only making a profit of two percent back then.

That small venture by a few friends now has a revenue of INR 29,481 crores and is the leading paint company in India and the second largest in Asia, operating in 22 countries. The reason for its success is often accredited to its creative and successful marketing strategies.

Asian Paints Marketing Strategies

A marketing mix is strategies the company uses to promote and create a demand for its product. Let us take a look at the marketing mix of Asian Paints-

1. Product Strategy

Instead of targeting a specific target audience, the company aims to cover a wide range of target audiences by providing various products at different price segments to cover the whole market. For Example, Asian Paints tractor emulsion targets the economy segment, while Asian Paints Royale targets the premium segment.

2. Price Strategy

It follows different pricing strategies according to the segment it is targeting. It has a very flexible pricing policy and is adjusted, seeing the market. It also provides a good share to the distributors so they keep recommending their product to customers.

3. Promotion Strategy

The company, from the start, had a heavy emphasis on its promotion. Its mascot Gattu was created by the legend R.K Laxman and became widely recognized nationwide. The promotion strategy used by the company is to depict emotional and family values.

The other promotional Strategy is to provide huge incentives to the distributor who promotes their product.

4. Place Strategy

The company, though, targets the whole world. Its main areas of focus are Asia and the Middle East. Its manufacturing is based in India.

Keys to Success

We just read about the marketing strategies used by the company, which made it more successful than its competitors, and how it gains a broad target audience by providing products at different price points which target people from all income classes. 

Another key to its success is its quick integration with newer forms of media. The company has never hesitated to try new marketing methods and has captured the attention of the Indian audience through its humorous ads. They have also led successful digital marketing campaigns in the past. They are doing this with the help of using influencers and participating in social media challenges and trends to market their product.

Successful Marketing Campaigns 

The company is known for its various successful marketing campaigns. Let us look at a few of them-

• After it created the mascot, Gattu, the company gained an association with advertising companies Ogilvy and Mather. Producing their famous tagline “HarGharKuchKehta Hai.” Before the festival, the company targeted this marketing campaign as people were likelier to paint their houses then.
• The company gained popularity among its audience for humorous ads, which started with its ad campaign ‘Waah Sunil BabuWah”. The idea of the ad campaign was though everything might get old, the house’s paint wouldn’t and would always look fresh and new.
• The company then started marketing its brand through high-profile celebrities such as Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, and Radhika Apte.
• The company conducts ad campaigns through digital marketing and holds various competitions for people to participate in.

Conclusion

Asian Paints is the only company globally that has grown 20% in revenue annually for the last 60 years. This is remarkable because it does not provide the highest quality paint but is one of the industry leaders in the world. All of this is due to its genius marketing and ad campaigns. The success of Asian Paints proves how valuable and effective good marketing can be for a company.