Shashikala Aravind is 61 years old. Formerly a bank employee, she has had one constant in her life for the past 40 years: Mysore Sandal Soap. The native of Mysuru — a contributing factor to her ‘addiction’ to the soap — could not help but try out other products, such as talcum powder and agarbatti, from the government-owned Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Ltd. (KSDL). On her recent visit to the supermarket, she came across more products from Mysore Sandal — handwash in scents one does not associate with the brand: pineapple, mango and strawberry, among others.
After completing a centenary in 2016, the makers of the iconic brand decided to reinvent without tinkering with the staples; they introduced new flavours and varieties into the market, hoping to catch the fancy of new customers while also egging the old, loyal ones to try something new. The gamble appears to have paid off.
KSDL officials said its range of handwash, introduced this year, is bringing in ₹40 lakh a month, with the rose handwash doing particularly well.
The government undertaking decided to introduce a variety of products into the market: handwash, a body wash, a face pack and camphor. Not all of them boast of having sandal – the mainstay ingredient that makes KSDL products a class apart. But KSDL officials said the pressure to maintain quality of a century-old brand is tremendous.
"We are procuring natural oils for the new products from across the country and a few from abroad. Orange oil, for example, is not available in India. We came out with these products after a lot of research," said an official.
But what brought about the need to expand a brand that was already doing well?
"Any product has a saturation point for the brand, especially if it is a hundred years old. The year-on-year growth in quantity gets limited to 4%-8%. By introducing new products, this growth can be pushed up to 15 to 25%," said a senior KSDL official.
Therefore, the projected turnover for the ongoing financial year is being pegged at ₹560 crore, up from ₹521 crore last year. The 2016-17 year had also seen a ₹50 crore profit over the previous year.
Who are the primary customers?
"From what we have observed, many experiment with a lot of brands when they are young. When they are 25 to 30, they will want to settle with one brand. More often than not, those who have seen their parents or grandparents use Mysore Sandal Soap will decide to stick to it," said an official.
Sure enough, many examples emerge. G.P. Lakshmidevi is 80 years old now. She started using the soap when she was 14. Her husband too always used the same soap. Now, their entire family uses Mysore Sandal Soap as that is the only soap that is available in the house.
Rama (50) saw her mother Padma (85) use only Mysore Sandal Soap pretty much all her life. "She used to cut it into half and use it over six months because she used to say it is too big. But she refused to shift to any other soap," she recalled.
It remains to be seen if the new products from the same stable make it to nostalgia as the soap did.
‘Not afraid of competition’
Shops and supermarkets are filled with soaps that market themselves as ‘sandal soaps’. But KSDL is unperturbed. "Ours is the only soap with 80% total fatty matter (TFM), which determines the purity of the soap and makes it long-lasting. We are also the only ones using natural sandalwood oil, as there is only one sandalwood oil extraction unit – the one in Mysuru, which is also a heritage unit — that belongs to us," said an official.
The brand and its legacy
It was the Maharaja of Mysore Nalwadi Krishna Raja Wodeyar's desire to propel Mysore State on the global map by introducing ‘the world's best natural sandalwood oil’ and make it the ‘fragrance ambassador of India’ that led him to establish the Government Sandalwood Oil Factory at Mysuru in 1916 with Sir M. Visvesvaraya. According to KSDL, the first experiment to extract sandalwood oil was successfully conducted at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
In 1918, a foreign guest presented a pack of soaps made using sandalwood oil to the Maharaja, sparking off the idea of utilising available sandalwood oil to make soaps in Mysuru. S.G. Shastry, a qualified industrial chemist, was sent to London for advanced training in soap and perfumery technology, and it was his return that marked the beginning of the Mysore Sandal Soap, with Mr. Shastry developing sandal perfume.
"The first indigenous sandal soap with sandal note as its base fragrance, along with other natural essential oils such as vetivert, patchouli, geranium, palmarosa, orange and petitgrain was produced and introduced in the market under the brand name of Mysore Sandal Soap in 1918," the KSDL said
From the iconic stable
Soaps
Detergents
Bodywash
Handwash
Camphor
Agarbatti
Face pack
