'All Out' - Marketing a Mosquito Repellant

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Themes: Marketing Mix
Period : 1989-2003
Organization : Karamchand Appliances Private Limited
Pub Date : 2003
Countries : India
Industry : Home Appliances

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Case Code : MKTG060
Case Length : 9 Pages
Price: Rs. 300;

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"It is one of the contenders to become the Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL) of the next century."

- Shunu Sen, Marketing Expert & CEO, Quadra Advisory, commenting on Karamchand Appliances Pvt. Ltd., in 2000.

'All Out' - Marketing a Mosquito Repellant: Making Waves

Karamchand Appliances Private Limited (KAPL) is perhaps not a familiar name for the average Indian consumer. However, KAPL's brand 'All Out' is very well-known. In fact, the name All Out is almost a generic name for Liquid Vaporizers (vaporizers), a segment of the Rs 4 billion¹ (in 1999) mosquito repellant industry in India.

KAPL was almost solely responsible for creating this segment. Within a decade of its launch, All Out had converted a large number of customers into vaporizer users, and had also established itself as the market leader in the segment, with a 69 percent market share in 1999.

The success of KAPL is particularly noteworthy, considering the fact that it was a small family-owned company that managed to wrest market share from corporate giants such as Godrej Sara Lee Ltd. (GSLL) and Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL) with strong, established brands such as GoodKnight, Jet, Tortoise, Baygon and Mortein, amidst stiff competition.

Background Note

With over 255 species of mosquitoes - believed to be responsible for spreading diseases such as malaria and dengue fever - (see Exhibit I) India has a large and growing market for mosquito repellants. Many methods are used in households for dealing with the mosquito menace. Table I lists some of the more common ones. In spite of the pervasiveness of the mosquito problem, the use of repellants in India is fairly low. It is estimated that only 16.4% of the households in all urban areas and 22.6% in the metros use mosquito repellants.

The figure for the rural areas is even lower, at only 6.9%. In terms of value, the mat segment was the largest (51%), followed by coils (21%) and vaporizers (7%). Coils were the first mosquito repellants to be introduced in the Indian market. The first brand of coils was Tortoise, launched by Bombay Chemicals Ltd. (BCL) in the 1970s. Until 1994, Tortoise remained the market leader in its segment, with a 67% market share.

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1] 1999 figures. In October 2002, Rs 48 equaled 1 US $.