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Jyothy Labs is likely to exit the deodorant category following differences with German multinational Henkel over the Fa brand.
Lack of ‘India-specific’ fragrances is one of the reasons given by the home-grown fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) major, which had merged with Henkel India in 2011 and added the latter’s brands, including Fa, Pril, Margo and Henko, to get a national footprint.
“It is a brand-related issue more than a category-led problem. India requires strong fragrances, and when we looked at Henkel’s global portfolio, the Fa brand did not find a fit in India, considering Henkel had a global library of fragrances,’’ said S Raghunandan, Chief Executive Officer, Jyothy Labs.
Fa is pitted against the likes of Eva, Spinz, Dove and Lux in the women’s deo category.
Integration problemsAfter acquiring Henkel’s portfolio, Jyothy Labs gained the rights to sell Fa in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and pays a royalty of 2 per cent to Henkel. However, attempts to integrate the Henkel brands have not been easy.
“Henkel did not give us the liberty to do the things we wanted to do with Fa, and it was not possible to bring in fragrances from its global portfolio. We have been trying to figure out what is wrong with the Fa deodorants, as there are issues with the brand in India,’’ added Raghunandan.
Until last year, Jyothy Labs was optimistic about the Fa brand, one of the initial brands in the women’s deo category. The company had made it clear that it wanted to stay away from stiff competition in the soaps and the men’s deo space, which is already crowded. It had also discarded the Fa Xtreme variant for which it had engaged actress Bipasha Basu in its campaigns.
Jyothy Labs had also re-launched Henkel’s Fa last year, positioning it as a woman’s deo and talc brand with smaller pack sizes and a brand new campaign shot in South Africa. This was done to give a leg up to the ₹15-crore brand, but without a celebrity featuring in the campaign.
The company was keen to market the brand, and had also increased ad spends last year.
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