Nirdosh

Bhavskar’s Herbal Smoking Device – An Alternative View on Marketing of Nirdosh

Preface
Nirdosh, a unique non tobacco smoking device was developed in 1982 by Maans Products in Ahmedabad. It was made by turning 14 herbs into granular form and rolled in Tendu leaves in the shape of a cigarette.
Maans Products was a family owned organization, run by Mr Bhavskar Sr as a biri manufacturing and marketing enterprise for about two decades. It had an annual business volume of Rs 10 lacs.

The Marketing Mix as of now
1) Product
The product is a cigarette made from 14 herbs that are beneficial instead of tobacco. This has been verified by Ayurvedic Vaidyas and manuals on Ayurvedic Medicine.
Drawbacks of the product
1) The product was rolled in tendu leaves, due to the fact that paper would be counter – productive to the intention of it being good for health and that the paper would get stained putting across an image of staleness.
2) As a result, the product looked more like a biri than a cigarette. This meant that the product was difficult to market to cigarette smokers.
3) Filters for cigarettes are cylindrical, while leaves are highly ungainly to be shaped into cylinders. This left a lot to be desired on the manufacturing front.

2) The following figure illustrates the Pricing for Nirdosh

As you can see, Nirdosh was priced towards the lower end of the cigarette spectrum, with a price of Rs 2.5 per packet of 10 (as of 1986). The idea behind this was to make Nirdosh accessible to a majority of the tobacco consuming population.
Drawbacks
1) The segment targeted was too large to cater to by Maans Products.
Because of new production challenges, the output was relatively low meaning there was no way Maans could enter the mass production of cigarettes.
3) Place
The following Flow Chart illustrates the ideal distribution channels for cigarettes.

This however was not the case with Maan Products because
They were a small scale enterprise
They never had the distribution network required to distribute Nirdosh to the masses.
Already present cigarette manufacturers controlled most of the distribution channels.
All they had was two scooters to shuttle between the shop and the manufacturing premises.
All they had was a small shop in the heart of Ahmedabad was Valuable Parcel Post to dispatch merchandise to various local and overseas whole-salers. The coverage was very slim due to lack of mobile sales teams as well. The third son was only one man, and even his inputs alone led to an increase of almost 50 packs of Nirdosh a day.
4) Promotion
Considering the budget that Mann Products was functioning on, the advertising was thorough. However, considering that Nirdosh was meant to be a substitute for all cigarettes, it was simply not enough
Things done right
1) The sales and promotions done at the shop in Ahmedabad
2) Sending of pamphlets to various vendors vis a vis VPP
3) Quantity Discount
4) The involvement of cine star Ashok Kumar and other important celebrities
5) The accreditation from various doctors , vaidyas and then promotion of the same
6) Print Magazines and Newspapers
7) Tie up with Voluntary Stop Smoking Organizations.
5) What he could’ve done differently
1) Product
The product needs to be marketed to the cigarette smoking population as a healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes.
This segment will not purchase biris or anything close to the appearance of the biris because these are considered as a product for the consumption of economically challenged segments of society. Association with Biris usually implies an association with economic backwardness.
Secondly, the packaging is not at all appealing to the consumer. Cigarette packets are aesthetic with large efforts made to make the contents of the packet appealing to consumers. This was another aspect missing in the Product vertical.
Thirdly, as illustrated below, we see a consistent rise in the sale of filter tipped cigarettes

Nirdosh needs to be positioned as a replacement for cigarettes and not bidis as demographics suggest people who smoke bidis are not educated enough to understand the consequences and subsequently quit smoking or shift to an alternative.
As per the table in exhibit III, we see that King Sized Popular Filter has a very strong growth trend. Also, it’s pricing at 30 paise per stick is also attractive.
Using this model, Nirdosh can start making an entry into the premium cigarette segment and use the new prices to improve on packaging and presentation of the product.
Tendu leaves are not conducive to cylindrical rolling as per the filter, so small scale paper manufacturers can be contacted to manufacture brown paper (as used by cigars) and this can be used to produce Nirdosh henceforth.

2) Pricing
The following scatter graph will illustrate the pricing of various products in the cigarette market.

We see Nirdosh is priced at Rs 0.25 per stick (as of 1986). This means the cigarette was priced to compete with Honey Dew, Berkley and Charminar, which formed a bulk of the cigarette sales at the time.
Maans Products does not have the capacity to produce or the network to distribute the product to such a wide target audience.
Instead, it is suggested that Maan prices Nirdosh in the large price gap between the Rs 0.55 and Re 1.00 segment where as per the demographics given in Exhibit III table 7, the target would be people between the age groups of 30-40, educated well beyond matriculation and forming a large part of the white-collar workforce.

3) Promotion
According to the statistics listed in exhibit III table 8 , the market segment to be targeted are avid readers of all types of print media namely newspapers and magazines, apart from being avid cinema goers. This means that Nirdosh has open all three modes of advertising. It is suggested that Nirdosh
1) Regular radio advertising over premium time slots as it is reasonably cheap and can be done on a repetitive basis.
2) Quarterly quarter page advertisements in the Times of India Mumbai, preferably the Sunday Edition to reach out to a large audience, and bank on radio ads to keep the product in the public memory.
3) Magazines once bought are perused for long periods of time, so a yearly full page ad is sufficient for the requisite publicity.
4) Apart from all of this, personal door to door selling in corporate offices in Mumbai as well as Ahmedabad would be highly beneficial (as illustrated by the example of the third son). Ahmedabad is under prohibition so tobacco enjoys a reasonably strong position in the market, and Nirdosh can make headway into it as a “Healthy Alternative”
5) Personal Relations is a must. Maan is doing that right by the quantity discount to wholesalers as well as maintaining a record of all previous buyers, to continuously reach out to them and ensure repeated purchases.
6) Statistics provided in Exhibit III can be used to convince smokers to wean off tobacco and on to Nirdosh, by highlighting “cost to life “ vis a vis medical bills and also the suffering of Cancer.

4) Place
Nirdosh does not have a large distributor network at its disposal, so they need to change the strategy from a high volume mass product to a low volume premium product. They can do so by
1) Modelling their shop after a premium Ayurvedic Medicine and Nirdosh store where people can come to purchase Nirdosh
2) Start a dispatch service for clientele outside Ahmedabad using the VPP Model they already employ.
3) Reach out to small scale retailers outside major office buildings to stock and sell Nirdosh as a product, as majority of the consumers targeted are white collared workforce.
4) The scooters can be used to transport Nirdosh in and around Ahmedabad to various wholesalers based on the Cash on Delivery Model.