How Godrej is catering to protective wellness in children with a new product

With the ever increasing number of cases of dengue, chikungunya, malaria and other water borne diseases grappling many parts of the country and children being the most susceptible to these mosquitoes, the market is exposed to a huge gap in the childcare insecticides sector. Hence, observing the need, Godrej recently launched Good Knight Fabric Roll-On to protect children of all ages from mosquitoes.

Acknowledging the protective wellness aspects of the product, Sunil Kataria, Business Head - India & SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. spoke to wellnessindia.com on the sidelines of the launch of the product.

Tell us about child care Good Knight Fabric Roll-On?

We have a launched disruptive product called Good Knight Fabric Roll On which is a first of its kind child care product in the world to shield them from dengue, chikungunya and malaria mosquitoes while out of home.

This product has to be just applied on the clothes of the child and put four dots, two at right and left shoulders and knees respectively, and it gives an eight-hour protection from mosquitoes. It is for daily application for two children and lasts for 30 days. The product is safe for children starting from infants to those in the age group of 12-13 years.

What made you come up with this product?

One of the biggest things that stroked us is that we have huge cases of dengue followed by chikungunya, water borne diseases in the country and there are not great products in the market to protect the children from these mosquitoes. Around 90 per cent Indians don’t know that dengue is the day mosquito.

Is it a skin sensitive product for children?

The product doesn’t need to be applied on the skin as the product is very sensitive and for the infants or newborns, it can also be applied on the cots. For rest of the children it’s a fabric application so there is no skin interaction. This is 100 per cent natural, active, child safe and paediatric recommended product.

How do you see the awareness of child care insecticides products among consumers?

What people don’t know is the dengue is a day mosquito and it bites when the child steps outside and that worries most mothers about whether they should let their child go out and play.

When we studied as to why Indians don’t take precautions out of home and why this habit is not developed, we found that there are no great products available. People wanted a unique product which creates a habit. Children don’t like to apply sticky creams on their skin and with bad fragrances.

How will you encourage parents to use the product?

We are running advertising campaigns across all the media platforms apart from digital marketing and sampling. The big role here will be played by habit creation because as a country we are not used to taking protection out of home, so we have to create out of home prevention habits. Therefore, we are focusing on creating habits. Also we are doing a lot of school activation programme where we are going to teach and educate children about developing habits.

What will be the retail presence of the product?

We are targeting to be present across 1.5 lakh outlets in major cities to start with. It will also be present across all the modern trade stores soon. The product will also be present all the leading eCommerce platforms like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Big Basket among others. We don’t have our own e-commerce portal as such so it will be sold primarily through the e-commerce market places horizontal and vertical.

What is the annual sale of Godrej Consumer Products?

We are an around Rs 5000 cr company and we have almost equal part of business coming from the international market.

Q What are the future products in pipeline?

We have launched five products in the last eight months which include Godrej Aer Pocket, Cinthol Deo Stick, B Blunt, Salon Secret Hair Colours and this one. Further we will be launching more products.

Q What is the market size of insecticides in India?

This is the game of category and the insecticides category in India is Rs 120 crores, so this is not about sale, it’s about breaking the category. Currently in India, out of home insecticides market is just 3 per cent of the total insecticides market while in US it is 40 per cent. And we hope this category doubles up in two years of time.