 Hello and welcome to E4M webinar presented by ConvoSight. Today we're going to chat about how consumer behavior in personal care and hygiene category has changed after COVID-19. So I'll just quickly not take the speaker's time off here and introduce our panelists here. And first to start with we'll talk a little bit about ConvoSight. ConvoSight is the largest and most loved platform by community builders and leaders to grow and manage their communities on Facebook. More than 4,000 admins trust ConvoSight to grow and manage over 90 million members in their communities which is Facebook groups. It also helps brands to engage with existing communities and build communities from scratch. To start with I'd like to introduce Tamanna. She will be the chair for the session. Tamanna is the CEO and co-founder of ConvoSight before building ConvoSight. She has already built India's largest parenting community with over 200 million moms and has been acknowledged and certified by Facebook on community building. Next we have Navin Anand who's a senior director regional marketing South Asia or IFLEP. Navin spearheads the operations in India Sri Lanka and Pakistan and is responsible for accelerating growth and enhancing the brand equity for order flame business. He has over two decades of experience in direct selling business and was instrumental in building and we India's business. Next we have Rajiv Dube head of media Dabbar a marketer with extensive experience in brand building innovation strategic media planning and buying as head of media function at Dabbar. He works very closely with marketing teams right from doing marketing mix modeling to devising annual operating plans to making a differentiated marketing strategies in discerning marketplace where every category has different set of challenges. Then we have Swati Desai who's a community leader, Bangalore women power and founder. Swati is the community at classic sorry I forgot to mention that. Swati is the community leader at Bangalore women power where she empowers women to become a home entrepreneur. She's also the founder of classic where she is enabling home entrepreneurs to reach out to their consumers and build sustainable incomes for themselves. Last but not the least we have Shashi Shekhar Mukherjee who's the head of digital marketing at Wrecked Bank Kaiser. He is one of the leading he's part of the leading teams in Wrecked Bank Kaiser. He carries deep experience in digital marketing across the top creative agencies in India and also a winner of top 30 digital marketers here Moesia top 100 digital marketer. Over to you Tamanna look forward to an amazing session from here. Thank you so much Tasme hi everyone welcome super happy to be doing this session with all of you and discovering a lot of new things about the new age that we are all in just a correction Tasme so before building convo site when we built my background is that I'm the founder of baby destination that was my son coming to say hi but it's a network of Facebook group communities I actually moved from New York to India to build that when I became a mother because I realized that communities is where mums can get support from each other and Facebook group seems like the right platform to build it on but not 200 million it's two million members that are there in baby destination communities today but what's very exciting is that it's all communities not just baby destination but every single community is built up organically so it's people who choose to join communities and then the admin approves and then in that journey is where we scaled in we built convo site which is like you said so globally we are the first community management and monetization platform for Facebook group admins what we really care about is tapping into insights from communities and then using those insights to power tools for both admins as well as for brand marketers so all of whatever I'll be sharing today will be from what we are seeing in conversations and would love to hear from a brand's perspective how are you seeing insights when you're doing other consumer emotions or research studies and then most importantly how are we tapping into these consumers now since we are still in a pseudo lockdown mode so just kicking this off by sharing my screen and diving into a couple of high level insights dashboards that I put together to set some context you guys can see my screen right yeah so this is just skincare for example right and there's a lot of data here and not that we're going through everything but just wanted to show that how even skincare just as an overall category has been steadily going up what's very interesting is that a lot of DIY and homemade solutions have now become the talk right so whether it's skincare whether it's beauty at home would love to hear so there's a lot of insights that we've put together on skincare haircare etc but the trend is DIY the trend is even for kids actually we started seeing that a lot of products moms that started creating products at home and partly it happened because of the lockdown partly it happened because of stockouts but would love to hear that how are we seeing this category emerge of beauty and skincare and haircare at home this is a sort of a personal hygiene dashboard right where as we can see that from earlier this year first quarter to now this has been constantly seeing the spike and it is it has stayed there what's very very interesting is if we look at all the products soap is the one which is it's continuing to go up and overall at a hygiene and immunity level we've seen a 13x increase in conversations and it is staying there right and again soap doesn't just mean soap people say soap but they mean everything they mean everything sort of hygiene right all other products so this has been an interesting trend sorry for the small charts but this is very interesting that how earlier and this was a trend last year as well a lot of conversation used to be on infections right with small number of conversations around germs right and now it's just changed it's of course there was a massive major reaction right after covid where germs took up pretty much 80 percent of the conversations were around germs but it is it is pretty much here still and 45 45 percent conversations are now around germ uh so what all of this is showing us is that there was a massive major reaction right where hygiene and sanitization became the biggest topic of conversations all we started caring about was how to protect ourselves how to protect ourselves from covid right and which was reflecting in all the conversations so as I say the new consumer who wants to be covid proof while making all of their choices right how to protect myself how to protect my family how to make sure I'm eating the right food so that my immunity is better and then you know if so if in case I get infected by covid then how I'm able to fight that infection so just getting into that right there were a lot of new product launches as well that we saw just in conversations in the last in the last three four months we've seen 50 new product and brand names emerge right and I first Shashi wanted to speak to you about you know get your thoughts on this that specifically from a sanitizer perspective right as the demand has absolutely exploded leading to stock out uh I was reading in a report that there's 150 new launches that have happened first with sanitizers then home hygiene and you know again personal care hygiene products how are you looking at this category and where sanitizers have now become an essential commodity how do we even differentiate you know continue to stay market leaders just would love to hear your thoughts on this I think that now if we look at the numbers I think that there are upwards of 300 brands who have entered the segment of of hand sanitizers and clearly yes I mean this really opened up a lot of needs for this product but yes a lot of other brands also kept in with not too much also brand credentials in fact you know for example like a non-alcoholic sanitizer we saw a lot of larger plans coming in but without the without the specificness of you know managing COVID as a as a disease so yes so there has been a influx of a lot of brands what we did look at is you know as in when you know the things happened things were happening you know people were you know you could see everywhere that people would be sort of you're talking in groups like you know what is up you know what do we do do we wash our hands five times ten times do I use you know sanitizer even after washing hands people were using sanitizer on their faces on their nose just to ensure that you know what else I can do people started washing their vegetables with that all antiseptic liquid right and now those are the things that we actually you know when we saw it and then I remember you know when we looked at the data for the first time you know early March and we looked at the data and we looked at that you know there are definitely a lot of chaos that that is happening in the human mind today and obviously with right reasons because they are there were no answers then right so the first I think the intervention that we did as a brand when we first looked at it was to I remember you know launching a campaign is less than I think 36 hours after seeing the first thing of you know do it right with that all because we didn't want people to wash start washing their vegetables with that all we didn't want them to sort of you know use a detail antiseptic liquid on a newborn baby now of course there are of course all these things are written on the back of the pack so it was a very smart intervention done which was all about you know do it right with that all and the larger thing was just you know look at look behind the back and choose for yourself I think that really helped us to at least as a as a you know as a as a responsible brand the first thing was so that you know people don't do anything wrong right and then we started looking into you know how different brands are coming up then we looked into the use cases that people have started looking into right there were a lot of discussions happening between mothers you know there were there were people complaining about you know hands getting dried because you know people would be actually using sanitizers every 15 minutes they are using it on their faces there so I think a big job of educating the consumer at the right point in time was critical and that's I think that was our first you know the first communication as a campaign for consumers at large across all you know communities and groups okay great yeah I remember that Shashi and I think later we last Swati also about her experience with that because when I was talking to her yesterday she literally she was like I remember and she was showing me conversations but I think that was very very responsible right and it also goes to say that how we really care about consumers right the first the first things first I really like that you know even though my question is that how do we increase market share but you know what you're saying is the first thing is to care about consumers and to go and tell them that look this is the right way to use that all or any sanitizers and take care of your skin right and the next thing is looking at what other products are propping up so it's very interesting we'll go into that you know little bit later also because I think that was a very very interesting case study so Rajiv I wanted to ask you on immunity specifically right immunity has become such a mainstay now that you know earlier it was we've always been reactive for our health we've always been reactive and now it's like exponentially proactive so like Shashi is saying we were using sanitizers 15 minutes right so hygiene and then immunity and so much so that every single thing linked to immunity has seen a spike and what we started seeing in conversations was whether it's the food we eat which is which means you know the whole shift towards better fresher foods because ultimately it should lead to a better immunity whether it's fitness not just for adults but also for kids because if we are fit again it leads to better immunity whether it's immunity boosting medicines even homeopathic medicines or you know things such as Giloy I think just that the share of voice of just those terms have gone up like massively right these terms were never spoken about in this degree and and the biggest spike has been home-based concoctions so super interesting but massive spike in you know home-based karras and concoctions just to increase immunity so again my question here is you know that with all of this so Chawan Prash is something we all know and we've all had right and some of our grandparents used to have it every single day like it was a daily use case right but our generation I think did not live up to that and now it's come back it's come back in a big way but but what is your take on it like one so granted the category has expanded multi-multi-fold it's here to stay we it's it's super interesting even for infants mums are asking questions to how to build immunity for like even my two month old right who's only like kind of breastfed so how are you looking at this category and are there any other ways like do you think this new consumer and this need for immunity is different is Chawan Prash is of course there but what what beyond that and how do we ensure that you know we are able to communicate that message for this new age consumer yeah so you know I think this is the first time when people felt that you know the virus is this close to us you know so close to us that it might come and attack us at any point of time and basically that's how people started washing their hands sanitizing their hands very often and you know keeping the surroundings very very clean with the various kind of disinfectants and then you know so you saw that you know various kind of disinfectants like surface cleaners the surface wipes the toilet cleaners the sales for all these products started going then something which is you know like hand sanitizers started doing pretty well soaps started doing well so these are the only external things right for the external security that you know if virus comes close to us you'll be able to stay away from virus second was that you know interesting something like uh immunity boosting products you know so the world had not heard of this this how called gilloy for example you know the gilloy came into a big conversation and uh people started talking about gilloy various formats of gilloy came into uh this thing uh came into circulation various companies started manufacturing it people started advertising it then brought right ashwagandha came into discussion there after you know there was a huge mystery came out with us advisory for people which said that you know we should have a kaha and we should have a chanprasht for immunity building that really you know gave confidence to people that you know that apart from these companies talking about these words there's a government also talking about it and one saw that you know there's these kind of things this these kind of things we all knew that you know the ancient wisdom talked about it that jon prash is good for you for your well-being and immunity like you said that older people used to do it but now this extended to every person in the family so apart from the older folks in the in the family housewife needed kids needed it the father of the house even everybody around you needed a product like jon prash for keeping you immune and then you know products like kaha i know one one knew about product like kaha for example you know that if you have if you say you have kaha it will do good to but as a proactive measure these kind of things started getting consumed you know so although there are not very big numbers to talk about these products like like kaha and gilloy and ashok and that etc but these became a part of the conversation you know apart from jon prash obviously which has been known for actually for ages came into for friend and he was starting consuming it in a much more in a more much more structured manner i would say you know much more religious manner i'll sort of to say but but all these other products also came into for thanks to or i would like to say uses word thanks to this virus but you know these things were always important it's not that you know these things are going to i mean this thing keep you keep the virus away from you but even in a regular day-to-day life you know if your health and hygiene is taken care of and if you have these products they basically they're good to so this this fact got established in a way people understood the reason and they started using it so that's my take on this sure yeah i think we can you know later talk about what are any any sort of new product launches or innovations plan like what if dabbler comes up with you know a kara packet or but i yeah we do we do happy yeah we did launch we did launch various community building products and kara was also on there and there's some parts were already they were already existed in the system but you know they were now now got advertised so as to say and we started advertising it with is a distribution we reached out these words out to people people started searching for these products on platforms like amazon started sending it through online app orders we had a very good growth in online so so i mean people went reached out to reached out looking for these products you know that's what it did sure um so um uh naveen um you know just coming to the entire um personal care and beauty at home as a category it's kind of mixed right because certain things when we look at sort of beauty and personal care such as hair removal we saw that that took a massive jump because it's a need it's an essential right whether we're home or that's just how we are conditioned so that that became like a big problem to solve right that how to do it at home but then in terms of specific beauty and makeup products as well as so hair care skincare is one but beauty makeup for beauty makeup given that we're not going out and in this new age of looking beautiful or at least feeling beautiful right on on video like how has that category changed so from our perspective from a conversations perspective we've not seen a spike in beauty sort of products per se what we have seen a spike is in a lot of diy like i said like a lot of uh like you know things such as homemade facials or ctms because people have more time at hand and you know that so that is something that we're seeing it's amazing to see how aloe are just as one ingredient has gone up and shot up right so we're seeing that interesting sort of trends but what i'm very curious about is with the how has the sort of makeup and beauty from your perspective changed what are the trends that you are seeing there right thank you thank you for the opportunity to be on this panel and also congratulations to exchange for media to bring up a topic like this i think it is very relevant in very important uh a lot of discussions around it and happy to be part of this discussion here you know the the key thing which covid is done to the consumer is a fear and which is a real fear you know it is there you know the fact is that everyone wants to be safe and it has done few things to certain categories at oriflame we do have businesses which are in personal care category we do have businesses which are skin care category and then we also call colors what you said around makeup so even in these three segments and we also have some products in the wellness category and there has been a shift very definitely and we have seen and like many other companies and data they are very surely reflects this that soap and hand washing liquid hand soaps have really really gone up okay but along with it you know as much as the consumer is fearful they also now got caught up with this thing uh what shashi mentioned is that am i doing it right or am i doing it too much of it and therefore they want someone to advise them you know so when you wash your soap a hand with soap very frequently it leads leads to drying of your hand and therefore we've also seen that the hand lotions have also gone up so people are using hand cream because they don't want their hands to be to be dry same goes for sanitizer you know if you are going to use it rather very frequently it's going to lead your hands to dry up and therefore the conversations are important education is important we in direct selling a little bit more bless we can reach to our brand partners so we put a fair amount of emphasis on on what is correct and therefore we always try and bundle these products together when you are talking of personal hygiene you know it is your hand sanitizer and that's important when you step out but when you are at home you have a soap and you need to have a hand lotion so those are the things which surely and definitely have seen a fair amount of spike for the industry and we are no exception skin care is something very interesting as much as do it yourself products have taken a greater share of the pie and we do have certain products largely in the facial kits and not new to us this is not a new launch it has been there but we have seen the demand for that gone up and we understand that because when you are at home those who are even going to the beauty parlor they are hesitant to do that so therefore our brand partners to sell it to more more consumers however I would say one one thing which we are pleasantly surprised is in skin care category for many many women the the regimen of a good skin is important and they do take care of it so you know they would clean stone moisturize and the the results on those and if you want to have good skin you need to go through the regimen and products which are part of the regimen we have actually seen pretty much not a big decline actually there is a shift from a premium brand to a little bit more say affordable so as to say but overall we are still I have seen that skin care has been able to hold stronger than what people think and I'm sure data around it can tell us that but our experience is that women they they do for the right reason pay right importance to the skin it is precious and be it at home or out you know just the regimen is important and women do end up using these products the category which has been severely impacted is that of makeup and obviously if you're not stepping out you don't need makeup so as to say you know there are certain products which are which are meant to enhance beauty and looks when you step out and those are the products where we have seen and I think the whole industry has seen a fair amount of dip with the only exception is eyes you know lips has taken a big beating who in large extent phase two but eyes is not actually eye products have become even more stronger and whenever whenever women are stepping out they still like to do their eyes so those are the shifts which we have seen in the categories but the bigger thing is that consumer still wants more information and also the consumer has become far far more aware today they are not going to buy a product without reading the label you know it is no more a hand sanitizer most consumers and thanks to lot of good education done by marketers and to a large extent by the government are going to pick up a product which is 70% alcohol because they know they're wanting to protect themselves from COVID and those are the things which are which are which in a way is very good because then brands which are really presenting the product with the right kind of claims and benefit gain and then of course as we heard there are 300 new brands being launched and how many of them have data of performance of them it's a little bit of a question mark so the consumer is more aware which is a good thing consumer still seeks more information and we continue to do that and I think all marketers it is our responsibility to share that but those are my my top line you know views on this and how we are seeing the shift in in our business our wellness products as we spoke about immunity and Rajeev mentioned about how the immunity products have seen a new new rise it's same for us you know we have a small range we sell a protein powder we have anti-oxygen we sell omega and you know people just want to in this era be even more like better safe than sorry you know these products have always been good you know if you are on these products you always will be healthier but if you are not on these products now people want to just be even more cautious about it it's like I think they believe somewhere at the back of their head it's some kind of an insurance you know let me spend that money I think I will be better off I will not fall sick so those are some important shifts which we have seen and I do believe it will continue in the same direction till this really you know the COVID right there and I truly hope and pray hard this gets over quicker than than not yeah you're absolutely right Navin I think the things which are a part of our regimen you know have stayed on and lips of course because of the mask I'm it's very interesting to hear that you're saying so eyes you know eye products have not seen any impact and that just goes to say it's sort of the biggest beating on lips is due to masks right otherwise absolutely you're correct you're not looking at yourself a certain way and if you're used to putting wearing a lipstick every day then ideally you should be doing it but then it's the mask which you know because we are always masked up and like you rightly said let's hope this is over soon that there's no end date there's no expiry date to this which is the biggest right what we all are facing so I've taken some points right I'll come back and ask I'm very very excited to ask about product innovations and what is sort of the most breakthrough innovations that you guys are thinking about in these categories but before that Swati would love to understand from you so Swati runs a community called Bangalore Women Power which she started when she moved to Bangalore because of her personal pain point of not knowing anyone and you know networking with women around her she has a professional career before that but then this is how our group started today it's a thriving group of over 100k women with the every post so we measure something called activity rate and every post in Swati's community on an average has 100 comments which is this is all organic right so it's it's super engaged so thank you Swati first of all for creating such such a powerful impactful community and I want to understand Swati so you started the community because of her pain point but who are these women why why do they choose to join your community just for all of us to understand better so I started like you said I started this community because I myself was seeking help okay because I was new to the town and it was I was finding it very difficult let me just take a small example like searching for a house in the right area was the biggest challenge that I faced the first problem statement that I had and I was actually seeking out for some community wherein I can get some help but which I couldn't find it here and that's the reason I thought okay why not I start and when I started this community I started with a small WhatsApp group wherein you know we I just you know posted on Facebook saying that I am planning to start a community a group of women wherein we can help and support each other and we can network with each other because I really wanted to socialize so socializing was one thing that was very important for me because for everything you need help so when I posted this I saw I was zapped to see that you know there were like more than 600 comments on the post and I realized oh my god there are a lot of people there are a lot of women who are actually seeking out a lot of opportunities for themselves a lot of help and support for themselves so I was like okay let me just leverage this and you know we started with a small WhatsApp group okay wherein we started helping each other we started building trust in each other and the kind of response that we were getting from women was fantastic and that's the reason we came on Facebook and within a span of two and a half years we are like more than one lakh women community and the engagement if you see it's almost like six hundred percent and out of this 90 at the moment today we are like 90 active members in the group so all these women are somebody who's who's looking for you know support who's looking for some recommendation it could be a brand recommendations like like we are talking about you know the COVID situation so which product should I use which shouldn't I use and there's a lot of debate that happens so it's all organic and it's actually real time discussions that happen so that's the best part about any group also I would say that these are the groups who have been invited by the other members of the group so there's always that humanization that's always that it's all the referral thing that happens and also there are a lot of people who actually are looking out for such groups wherein you know they are seeking some kind of help and they proactively join such groups because they know the power of communities and the most important part is whenever we have anybody in the group we do make sure that you know all these profiles are genuine and when people knew that you know the profiles are being scrutinized because I mean if you see on Facebook there are a lot of face of fake profiles and you know a lot of invalid profiles that comes in but we make sure that we scrutinize each profile and we build that trust in a way that today we are more like a family so the kind of you know response that we get in the group if you ask any kind of help may it be like let me just give you a example wherein a lady in the US she was she her parents were in Vijay Varda and you know initially she used to stay in Bangalore so she was quite worried that both of her parents were COVID positive and you know they were not finding hospitals she just went it out and posted in BWP that I'm seeking help and you know there was another lady who was following the post and she arranged the entire help in Vijay Varda I mean that was the that's the power and she was so happy that you know being far it made it closer for her so it's it's a small world we say but here it's proved right so that that's the that's the whole game of community wherein it's more like a family you you ask for anything you get it it's like Google and then and everything is real time demographically if you ask me 100 percent of women definitely but they are in the age group of 25 to 45 where 70 percent are you know mothers and they are asking for some parenting help it could be it could be anything that you know probably in the in the entire lockdown we had been going through a lot of stress so there were people who were looking out for some fun and entertainment so we did a lot of activities within the group and there's a lot of learning opportunities like do it right campaign which was there which was done by that all that was a fantastic campaign which wherein we were educating people on you know how to use it all so likewise it is not only in terms of brands but it's also in terms of learnings wherein you know if they were there are a lot of talent which is available within the community and we called all of these talents and we have told we have asked them to take up some sessions some free sessions wherein a lot of people get a lot of entertainment as well as education and you know it's it's like a perk for them sitting at home so this is how we are actually trying to build this community in the way that you know the you you don't have to you know look outside for any kind of help if you have a question come to the community and you know your problem is solved so that that's how also I remember swathi so we were talking yesterday and I was asking her right I said what did you feel after covid what changed in your community right because so many things so we're talking about what changed for consumers you know how have these brands reacted on it and then what changed in the community and you know it's interesting when she said that you know hundreds of people just started joining every day she was telling me her welcome posts daily had three four hundred member tags to just sort of you know welcome new members and it's interesting people were searching and joining right just because that need to get support was was so much higher and then also conversation spiked right so that's very it was very interesting to hear that and she was taking me through some of the examples swathi specifically for that all it would be good to talk about it right because so you've done about three campaigns right that all and you were sharing with me pre covid and post covid so I think two were launches just just tell us how was that experience how did the members in the community react to it and the reason would be good for us to hear is because these are organic communities so how do they how do they react to brand communication right like how how is the engagement and why why have you of course it's it's you know for for admins it's it's great because it is some source of sustainability but you know then why have sort of you continued and the member feedback on all the three campaigns so the very first campaign when there was this product launch of that all disinfectant spray okay so when we started promoting in the group there was a very good response that there's something new that has come up in the market and people were really excited but there were some set of people who had this you know there were some backlashes which did happen wherein people say oh it's chemical based you shouldn't be using it how can you promote such products I mean that kind of backlash was there and it was little difficult when obviously the change management is little difficult so that was the change that we were bringing in the mindset of people so we did say that okay do try and you know then you will you should be sharing your experience you know rather than putting up on the post like this but obviously all feedbacks should be welcomed negative or positive but later when we did the when we did the second post that was again we did the campaign altogether again and that was when people were like oh my god I'm actually not getting this product when I'm it's like out of stock the unavailability of the product was the talk of the town and you know so people felt the importance of this product because they felt it was useful it was very very useful it's not a not only about the disinfectant spray it is all that at all products that had come you know in terms of sanitizers like Shashi said that you know yes people did use it you know wrong I mean and you know there were some kind of reactions that did happen but you know campaigns like do it right really helped in educating people it's not I really liked the way and people also loved the way that all these campaigns were done because it's not about just promoting a product it's about educating about the product which was very very important usually what happens is when you get a product in the market and like Navin sir said everything is written behind the product but not everybody reads it so you know that and sometimes what happens is you know we say action speeds louder there were sorry I think we lost her maybe she joined back I thought it was my internet sorry I had lost you yeah yeah yeah no we lost you and now you're back yeah we were worried about zoom sorry we lost you yeah she was talking about like it's actually very interesting I'll just take one thing from that that the do it right you know it's like what Swati said it's educating second it's leading with insights what was the insight what was the problem people were not doing it right people were not doing it right because of the fear and because of that there was a reaction or there was a negative impact on the skin or whatever so they're all going in with do it right and it's very interesting Navin that in the imagery we actually showed the backpack of that all let do it right these are the four cases in which you should use that all and this is the skincare regime that you should follow after every sanitizer use you must use a moisturizer just moisturize your skin and I think it's very sort of bang on right that when you talk about the problems that are top of the mind of the consumer they they appreciate they understand they become evangelists they go all out they understand that the brand cares about what you know what we care about and I think that's one other interesting thing that Swati was saying was a lot of recommendations around or flame people just asking who are looking for employment with or flame has gone up in her community because again we're all at home and a lot of people have lost jobs so that was very interesting at least for me to hear because there's a lot of reviews that get posted in her community about local services etc but also for people so people are asking is it okay that if I join you know or flame so it's it's a one in times like this when there are job losses and you know direct selling does provide an opportunity for everyone to make an additional income we have surely indefinitely in the direct selling industry seen as high and also in our business and or flame business indirect selling is still a little unique because we are predominantly business with large number of women and therefore groups like what Swati does you know they need they need assurance that am I doing something right and the fact is that to join and not employment like I'm employed with or flame I'm on a salary on a roll but these are business women they set up their own businesses without any investment and then build from there but they need reassurance and there is no joining fee or anything you know it doesn't take money to to join but I think they need assurance that are they doing the right thing you know and that's where the magic really happened and we have definitely seen many many women and men for that matter join the or flame business to to ensure that they have new additional income so that is exactly right and I I can completely correlate with it you know in situations like this all the time always every penny is important but in these times it's even more so people are looking for additional income and we have seen seen that go up yeah so I want to ask this question to all you know the panelists Rajiv Shashi and Naveen that now when the consumer who used to step offline is inside the house right and whether we say things have opened up we're still all in I mean I'm at home I think Rajiv you're in office but I'm at home I think Shashi is at home so it's still like you know in a you know some sort of a lockdown and whether it's New York or Europe which has gone again in lockdown but that's where we are in terms of getting access or listening to the consumer and you know what are they caring about because we just spoke about the new product launches whether it's sanitizers fruit and vegetable spray household cleaning products or a corona oven right so one of my founder friends has you know we bought a corona oven when I was in Delhi few months back right it was a pain it was big so I love the product but you know there's innovations right and he had some insight and he launched that so again in this new era which is here to stay for some time where are we going or where are you guys sort of you know looking to go and engage with consumers as well as get an insight so I think if I go first so you know we are actually hearing more than ever you know because I think somewhere you know like the the changes that have happened in the last eight months is unprecedented you know like if I just give a very top line numbers people and I'm talking about for example a hand wash category right which is which is a one tier above so right because of course and I'm talking pan India so the penetration there are like the penetration has gone to x so there are double number of people who are using a product for the very first time in their lives right and this is just one example and if you look at for example all the the gentleman who spoke about all the different categories I think the other entire immunity building or immunity or in the prevention space have seen many new people come you know many full people come in with the picture and therefore the insights are also changing I mean okay in not insight but you know the the pain points the the use cases the what is there on their mind at the moment that they are kind of you know changing for example I remember two to three months back when he looked into the data with you now I basically we saw that the because there has been too much education around hand hygiene now the focus was shifted to shifting to surface protection how do I you know sanitize the amazon boxes that that comes to my house how do I do this how do I do that so therefore and even in surface protection what are the top surfaces there are certain surfaces that even clean for example you know like any heart surface but what do you do with the couch what do you do with the rug you know so soft surfaces therefore you know then we looked at looked into it so I'm sure you know in the next six eight months we need to constantly keep our eyes and ears open we may not know what the new use case comes because everything is in beta at the moment and of course we at least very firmly believe that we need to keep our mindset so open and not really you know these are facts and what we've seen in the past six months these things are changing every day so I think just be open and agility is most important to keep things open and clearly insight which is you know at a grass root level for example right what people do talk to amongst each other like you know what swati was telling about the the entire community of people coming together to sort of you know help such a person in need I mean those are the places where people talk their hearts out right and that's the right time to right thing to mere okay this is what they're wanting because I can do a dipstick with sort of you know syndicated research people know that you know I'm here to sort of fill a question I'm going to get paid at the end of the session they've been doing it for the last 10 years but this is something that I think the people are real the insights are real and the signal that you can can get cannot be more real yeah and I just want to highlight this because I think with Shashi and Rekhid now we there is some like you know we've been working together but one thing is insights but the lightning speed at which I think you've acted Shashi is also commendable so really like like you rightly I know that because on a Sunday you know seeing an insight in 24 hours going out to hundreds of communities with this message that we care and please do it right and take care of yourself so I mean it's insight but making it actionable so yeah I would love to hear from you know Rajiv and Naveen also that any other channels that you are tapping into digitally or just to get insights uh onto consumers yeah you know so uh just so sorry let me get talking no no go ahead go ahead please okay after you so so you know uh like just to add to what uh uh Saim was saying that uh so Shekhar was saying that you know uh there's a beta phase you know and last six months we saw a severe lockdown and from severe lockdown to unlock one two three four and now unlock five people are going out now so first phase we saw that you know complete lockdown people are inside their homes are experimenting with all the products which are available at their home at that point of time then to opening up you know people went out started going out gradually they started interacting with others and started to see how uh things are going to shape up once the once the complete unlock happens you know once everybody's out once all of you are in offers you know uh then what'll happen is that you know you will learn a few more things for example you know one learns that you know you don't need to sanitize your hands uh so often probably you know rather than that washing your hands is much more much more better much more safer rather than sanitizing your hands so much so many times and taking care of yourself staying away from each other uh maintaining a distance so uh as we go along this this learning is going to be uh further accentuated this virus is not going to go away for another two years that's what I say and another six months and now when we complete one complete year you would have seen that you know the trend of products would have changed completely you know some products would start seeing tapering off in their sales for example I I can predict that you know as a product like sanitizer I would see that you know the 300 products which have been launched you know will disappear then the very few will remain and very few will survive you know so in the month of March April I remember anybody with a bottle of alcohol was manufacturing uh uh sanitizers you know so all that will change uh so all the uh smaller players people who could not uh make a dent into the market could not distribute or people who are not able to distribute the products properly who don't have a supply chain ready these products will gradually disappear and the people once they go out they become braver and they start experimenting with new formats and probably new things will emerge you know so one has to keep eyes and ears open for the new opportunities which exist in the market probably going out is a new normal now and that just going out new normal you'll have to look at some other category of products uh you know which are which are going to be of uh uh used to people for example you know uh open-air parties if you do suppose for example the people have been totally away from parties in last six to eight months so you know how can you make the parties safer so those kind of products can see us asserts and and many more people you know will you travel outside to go what kind of production you should use and how do you protect yourselves from the virus because the virus is going to be there I mean all said and done the effect is going to go down but you know we're talking about second wave and the third wave and so one has to be very very careful about the virus and and this will lead to a new learning and new products coming to the market right I'm so sorry to be the bearer of the bad news that we're running short of time so we'll quickly go to uh the question answers that we have first of all thank you to all the speakers and of course our presenting partner converse side I'll just quickly go over to some of the questions that we have been receiving so first question is for swathi swathi someone asked that if I was a personal care brand which community should I focus um yes which community should I focus to find relevant conversations what is the approximate size of these communities in India it is it a significant number uh so so when you choose a community first uh so there are a lot of good communities that are already available in on facebook so there are some communities which are specifically on health you know related communities so one of those would be these kind of communities where you know people talk more about health and conversations around it uh groups like you know uh ours okay where we are talking about everything and has good engagement so whenever you look for any kind of community just make sure that you know how's the engagement how are people reacting within the communities all these are very very important before choosing a community and when you talk about size size is not that important how much is the quality because there are some groups which are small in numbers but the engagement is very very high so that's where you get more relevant answers or you know conversations around your product so just not go on the size but yes quality is very very important understand more on the insights so you know we get all these insights from the from facebook itself and from conversite wherein based on the insights you can choose your community perfect perfect I would request on sorry I just want to add a point here on the size of communities and this is for everyone so uh in facebook global community summit which just was held two weeks back there's 1.8 billion people now across the world actively engaging in communities of course the pandemic has had a huge impact right so pretty much all of the engagement on facebook is coming from groups there's uh on conversite specifically there's its 5000 communities with close to 90 million members and for any sort of personal care uh you know conversation hygiene conversation whether it's parenting or it's a local community like swathis there's tons of communities like how swathi is community there's communities like pula which is the largest community in pune right and as swathi said there's the numbers as well as there's there's the total number of members but engagement is what's really important and the most critical thing in all of this is what are we communicating we have to marry the pain point with our message and that's why it's it's really purpose led marketing because if that's not there then you know the consumers are not engaged if they're not engaged the admin is not happy because it's not it's an organic forum so what's very important is understanding what consumers care about and then going and educating them absolutely next question is for you shashree shaker this says that should a social media strategy or a digital strategy include community marketing as a separate budget how are brands leveraging community meeting in their brand campaigns what is the size of budgets for the sake you can just compress all three questions into one answer your microphones off i think it's two minutes before the meeting ends so very quickly definitely so when we say social i don't see a difference between social and community because it's about creating conversations with with your audience right they could be on facebook they could be on twitter they could be on instagram they could be on facebook groups and when you talk to them on facebook groups you call it community so yes in that way it's definitely the power of it now how do you start doing is always start small create some impact prove a point then scale it up don't put all the eggs in the basket don't try to sort of you know do a lot of bigger campaign but do a specific campaign but very critically measure it because the the platforms helps you measure also so put it put kpi's measure it if you if you see it is green go back and put more money and slowly scale it up but not necessarily looking together but very critical to have it as a mix in the overall digital marketing budgets yes we quickly take a question for rajeev too so the question says categories like sanitizers hand wash immunity boosters how well can a community marketing help in creating a hike reach and also engagement is there a specific strategy that brands follow or are there any suggestions on that so there are two things in this you know one is that this this community these communities have a limited reach in the sense that it has limited reach but however the most important thing is that most of the insights come from these communities and very very focused and these are basically these are very good for inside generation but ultimately you have to reach out to the entire mass of the country so so you know you have to look at both you have to maintain a balance between the two one is that this small community you have to focus you have to keep everybody on your side because these people are ultimately going to be don't going to become your brand ambassadors in the long run and then talk to the mass the 1.3 billion people of this country as a whole Tamanna I will quickly take one more question for you this says that can you share some practical use cases of the insights generated in the personal care category from conversations by brands that you're working with so yeah I think we have a minute but so I can I can quickly take example for wheat sure she's that's okay right I can just take an example for that that when we say that hair removal and hair removal at home became a need what did we see so two things specifically came out one consumers don't know how to do it at home right so how to do effective hair removal at home and the second was specific myths around skin darkening because you know there are myths that if you use any hair removal creams then there might be skin darkening and as we all know I think just recently you know just today I think fair and lovely name has been changed but fairness is a big thing in our country right and skin darkening is something that we don't so those are the two insights that came out after looking at all the data so we then utilize those insights went into the communities with exactly solving those two problems how to do it how to use wax strips at home and and today the adoption of it is massive and it's here to stay now because they are cheaper more convenient more hygiene right with this more hygienic with the same sort of efficacy and the second thing which was sort of myth around skin darkening which was happening again due to incorrect usage so which is so for which wheat has gone out with you know again massive initiatives around bringing in dermatologists experts and also beauty influencers to talk to consumers on how to use it for the right amount of time not leading to so both of these myth-pasting myth-pasting and adoption have worked very well but coming from that core insight if we didn't know the insight we would have gone and said 10 different things right wheat is great and use it as a product and I think just to just to add add to that other thing was so you know because we would take the insight and you also look at you know what are the other un a stuff that you have with the existing consumers for example every category has got fen sitters right people who are unsure unsure whether try or not right COVID because you know it shut salon doors a lot of people were so as to say they had to try it because there was no other option right and our data actually you know we already have so a trial to repeat is really great for products like these so you know once people try it the repeat rate is higher so clearly that made up a made a you know strategy even you know focus that there are people who will be trying it for the first time and if the community actually showed what are the top concerns so you we married the both and actually came out with a campaign which could talk to their people talk to the fen sitters answering some of the questions that me or they might already have in their mind so clearly so that's the way to kind of you know scale it up and move forward one penultimate question for Navin before we close this session Navin if you can help us understand you know what kind of content works for communities because you work with so many communities so is it the visual content or is it just any other form of written content what is the kind of content that works best for your messaging in communities I think for us the the learning has been that when you are with them now you're not there physically with them so we have had huge amount of success with Facebook lives or the teams meeting so it is always they want to listen to you they want to see you even if it is digitally they want to be in conversation with you and I must say if there is one thing which is changed for for us and I think probably I speak for many brands I think it is the importance of the money is one has put behind the the digital marketing and we have also disproportionately increased that this year we are seeing some very positive results and we continue to do that in fact this year Ori Flame in India is celebrating 25 years and on 14th of December we shall do a mega digital digital event which goes pan India and we could have never imagined things like this before the covid time but there is so much of effort which we are putting in there and I feel so so energized about it and not only this big event all small events which we are doing with our brand partners they have been very well appreciated they still want to meet you you know it is just like okay if not physical in the meeting I want to still see you maybe digitally great great thank you so much a conversation like that on such a pressing topic and go on forever we can take the conversation offline on our social handles I would again want to thank all our speakers for being part of this amazing webinar thank you Tamanna for the moderating the amazing session and lastly thanks to our presenting partners convo side we can take this conversation ahead from here on our social handles thank you so much for being here thank you thank you everyone thank you so much thanks bye thank you so much everyone