By the late 1980s, coil sales had fallen and smoke-free mats made up almost 50 per cent of the repellent market. Goodknight sold well across all urban areas, or electrified areas that had high mosquito density and a population earning well enough to experiment on innovative products.
This is where Mohan saw another opportunity: To get into the spray market as there were still many households which didn’t want an electric mat and were not happy with the burning coil. Bharat Dabholkar talks of how he launched the campaign in one evening, all while chatting with Mohan.
At times, competition makes a promoter act fast and create a communication line that not only resonates with the customer and thus becomes a bestseller as it addresses a real need. In this case, it was about addressing two different pests—mosquitoes and cockroaches, both of which a customer wants to get rid of.
Says Bharat:
We were launching our first cockroach repellent, HIT. One day, we were sitting in Taj Hotel at Colaba for dinner, when we heard that Bayer was launching Baygon in a single spray for both cockroaches and mosquitoes.
We had to act fast. We had created two different products for mosquitoes and cockroaches, as technically they needed different treatment. In the case of mosquitoes, the aerosol should stay in the air, while in the case of cockroaches, the liquid had to stick to the floor. We had thus two products.
There was the question of killing competition with a smart campaign.
That evening, while having dinner, I wrote the lines on a napkin. The jingle was in the lines of Ashok Kumar’s famous song ‘Rail gaadi’. It went something like this: Goodnight cockroach, udta cockroach, chalta cockroach, HIT cockroach. HIT for mosquitoes was black in colour, while for cockroaches it was red. Baygon had launched a two-in-one. Our line ‘Kitanuo mein hai farak zameen asmaan ka’ resonated well with the customer that she needed two different products for cockroach and mosquitoes and that one didn’t work for the other.
The campaign was a hit; so were sales, which rocketed.
It takes an astute promoter, with a clear understanding of what resonates with a customer, to come up with unique and appealing—at times, shocking but effective—communication. Mohan talks of an innovative ad which was part of a print campaign. He explains,
The simplicity in it was about showing a newspaper full of cockroach images almost in 3D. It felt like cockroaches falling on paper and the line ‘cockroach cockroach’ and another white page of the newspaper with a huge image of a red HIT can with the words ‘kills cockroach.’ The reader instantly knew that HIT got rid of cockroaches. We also used the words ‘Cockroach-free’ in some ads as we found that many Jains and others didn’t like the word ‘kill’.
Continuing on the campaign in the newspaper, the company went for a similar one using buses. ‘The bus, on one side, had images of cockroaches and the other side showed “HIT Cockroach” with a white background,’ explains Mohan.
By then, the company had been doing exceedingly well in the mats category, but Mohan realized that the client often was confused as to when the mat had finished overnight. It would have turned white from blue and the smell would have disappeared, but that was not enough to tell the customer about its effectiveness.
The role of a promoter is also to remain vigilant about changes he sees worldwide and introduce the same in his market. Mohan did so by introducing the liquid repellent, which has worked wonders. It also helped solve the customers’ problem with the mat repellent. Today, all mosquito repellents come in the liquid container form.
Mohan’s understanding of the market is what got him the leadership position and, soon, other companies were vying to buy him out. He, too, was ready to sell as he had other plans for his life.
In 1994, when a deal with Hindustan Lever did not go through, the Mumbai-based Godrej Group stepped in and acquired Mohan’s company (this also marked Godrej’s first acquisition). This was reportedly the first time an Indian FMCG company made a buyout. ‘I think our sales was nearly ₹100 crore then,’ recalls Mohan.
Today, thirty years later, Godrej continues to innovate to keep the brand relevant and retain its top position.
The Goodknight product range today comprises its latest product, the neem agarbatti, along with Power Chip System, Power Active+ System, patches, fabric roll-on, Xpress System (a liquid vaporizer and diffusing machine), Cool Gel, Power Shots, Activ+, Low-Smoke Coil, Mini Jumbo Coil and the Fast Card. Goodknight’s R&D department is responsible for several breakthrough innovations like the Fast Card—a small piece of paper that is burnt to instantly get rid of mosquitoes and keep them away for about four hours (priced at just ₹1); the Activ+ System that delivers double the power and effectiveness; the Xpress System that works three times faster; the Low-Smoke Coil that reduces smoke; and the neem agarbatti, with neem and turmeric, both natural mosquito repellents. On Mothers’ Day, Goodknight started a campaign with a video showing why a mother knows everything before her family calls out to her for help and how they are always in ‘Active Mode’. With the tagline #MomsOnActivMode, the video features two kids talking about how their mom is ever so active while the voiceover of their father jovially asks them how they felt about their mom. While launching Fast Card, Goodknight created a campaign to show consumers that these cards ward off mosquitoes within moments and kids can study without the worry of being bitten. The video features two kids studying in front of their tutor and, as one boy gets distracted again and again by the mosquitoes and get chided by the tutor, the mother burns the Fast Card and restores his concentration.
This excerpt from ‘Desi Disruptors’ by Vispy Doctor and Vikrant Pande has been published with permission from HarperCollins Publishers India.