Resilient brands in India are those that balance access with aspiration, pull with push, and technology with human insight, asserts Dheeraj Arora
India is entering its most exciting consumption phase ever – a $1 trillion retail opportunity, 1.1 billion internet users, nearly 400 million online shoppers and smartphone penetration approaching 70 per cent.
I’ve spent over two decades in FMCG. My biggest learning from the last few years is simple: brand resilience is not about surviving uncertainty; it is about staying relevant while the game itself is being rewritten.
From Volume Vs Value To ‘Penetration-first’ Resilience
Historically, FMCG and the broader economy grew on a healthy mix of volume and value. However, in recent times, growth has been predominantly volume led particularly for category HRI operates in. Rural volumes have recovered faster than urban, but that very recovery has put pressure on value and profitability. In hair colour, higher longevity of colours, dosage packs and reduced put-down prices have all compressed immediate value.
At HRIPL, the way we have dealt with this is by going back to a very fundamental question: who is still not in the category? We are fortunate to be in categories like hair colour, hair serums where headroom is huge. So, our definition of resilience has become penetration-first: design pack-price architectures that let a Bharat household try us with dosage & penetration packs, and then build formats, benefits and experiences that allow that same consumer to trade up over time.
In a country where “aspiration is equal, access is not”, especially between India and Bharat, that balance of accessibility and aspiration is going to separate resilient brands from the rest.
One India, Many Newsfeeds
A decade ago, I visited a Shakti village as a branch GM at HUL. The whole village gathered around Video on Wheels; our commercial appeared between film. One screen, one story, one way to consume – classic push marketing.
Ten years later, I travelled to a remote village in West Bengal. This time there was no common screen in the centre. Every person was the screen – head down, phone in hand, watching their own mix of YouTube, Instagram and OTT. Word of mouth had morphed into ratings, reviews, and ‘how-to’ videos.
That is the new reality: there is still one India, but there are many newsfeeds. A 16-year-old in Bhopal now watches the same content and follows the same influencers as one in Bandra; what differs is access, not aspiration.
For marketers, this has broken the old debate of ‘standard vs customised content’. We moved from ‘standard vs customised’ to ‘standard and customised’, so we must do both. The brand idea must remain one, but execution must flex by pin-codes, cohort and context.
From Push vs Pull To ‘Phones As The New Bazaar’
Every aspect of the old push machine is being challenged. Distribution and visibility are still non-negotiable – general trade, modern trade, ecommerce and quick commerce all matter. But increasingly, India discovers products on the phone long before it sees them on a shelf.
On a recent trip to Kashmir, my young horse guide doubled up as our family reel curator. His comfort with content creation was no different from a professional influencer’s. That day, it struck me very clearly: In today’s India, the phone is the new marketplace for discovery and the new stage for influence.
For HRIPL, that means building an ‘always-on pull engine’: searchable content, tutorials, before-and-after stories, salon education, ratings and reviews, and WhatsApp communities where stylists and consumers talk to each other, not just to us. Push keeps you present; pull keeps you preferred.
From Celebrity-led Fame To Community-led Trust
Marketing in this age is no longer about just having a celebrity ambassador; it is about building an ecosystem of brand ambassadors – salon professionals, beauty advisors, retailers and everyday users who genuinely advocate for your brand. Their reels, reviews and recommendations carry a different kind of authenticity in Bharat’s households.
So, for us, resilience means using celebrities to give the brand a stage but investing equally – if not more – in educating and empowering this community of real endorsers at the edge.
At Streax, we are strengthening that bridge between discovery and purchase by leveraging Meta’s Collaborative Performance Advertising Solution (CPAS). As India embraces the rapid growth of quick commerce, CPAS allows us to seamlessly convert interest on Instagram and Facebook into sales on platforms like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart. By integrating live retailer catalogues with Meta’s AI-driven optimisation, our dynamic product ads reach high-intent shoppers at the exact moment they are ready to buy.
For me, that is what modern pull looks like: not just creating desire but wiring the last mile so that acting on that desire is effortless.
AI As Co-pilot
AI is already rewiring how we listen, learn and respond – from mining millions of reviews to generating creative routes in hours. But I firmly believe AI should be a co-pilot for marketers, not an autopilot for marketing.
Our job as CEOs and marketers is to ensure the answer doesn’t depend on economic cycles or algorithm changes. It depends on whether we keep our brands honest, accessible and in sync with the consumer’s life – in metros and in Bharat, online and offline.
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