 quickly get into a very interesting session and welcome a very, very interesting speaker. Now, who is the person? Quickly I'll tell you a little story about the person and his partner who started this. Well, with no intentions earlier to do this, they got into this because they had a personal experience about something. And then the two, the couple decided, let's take a level, a next level rather, to make sure the consumers get the best than what has been served to them already. And today, in 2021, they are top notch in bringing products which are with, well, the lack of safe baby products I was talking to you about which let Varun and Ghazal allow to create Mama Earth in 2016 and offer parents toxin-free products for their tiny tots. Since then, the brand has seen an exponential growth, become one of the most talked about brands in the country and remain committed to its brand philosophy of goodness inside. Telling us why consumers connect with purpose-driven brands is the man himself, Varun Alam, co-founder and CEO of 100 Seconds Consumer Private Limited, the makers of Mama Earth and the Derva Company. Please welcome with a big round of applause Varun Alam with us this evening. Hi Varun, good evening to you and very, very happy to have you here with us right now. Hey, good evening. Thank you so much for having me here. And thank you for those kind words of setting up some really kind things that you had to say about what we have done and what we have built and thank you for that. So Varun, I'm talking with my personal experience itself. I have a little niece at home and we are very attached to your products and I can totally get the difference of when I was born, I did not have this. But now that I have it, I would rather give it to the coming generation as well. So I know how great the products are and today as you join us here, all our audience and me, mostly all of us are eagerly waiting to understand the story and what mode you bring to the table. So over to you Varun and post which I'll have a bunch of questions ready for you Vishyam. Super, so let me actually go back and start from the story itself and then I'll jump into talk about our belief in purpose-based brands and why they matter to millennials and how at least we look at building purpose-based brands giving, sharing you the secret framework of doing that internally with the audience as well. And so this story, like Mithin talked about goes back to, honestly, 2014, not 2015. 2014 is when we were blessed with Agastya, our son. And that's when the platonic relationship with personal care became a little more serious for us. Because before that, while I've been in the industry, I've worked with Unilever, sole champions, conditioners, lotion, et cetera, but never really cared to check the ingredients that go in there. Are you with us, Varun? Because kids have two eggs, they're trans-terminal absorption compared to adults and they're at even higher risk from some of these chemicals. And that kind of made us think we, of course, like anyone else would, we started ordering stuff from abroad and tried to figure out where around this problem that we were facing. But after trying to latch on to a lot of friends, relatives, et cetera, we realized it was really painful and expensive as well. So we finally sort of started talking about this idea that someone should solve this and not only the problem of creating talks and free products, but also a problem of creating great personal care products meant for India, meant for Indian problems, coming from the cultural heritage that we come from. For example, as parents, we would use the mix of Hing and coconut oil on our son's tummy for better digestion and for chronic relief. And we didn't wanna give him anything to sort of consume at that time because as much as possible, you wanna avoid, they're only on mother's milk, right? But there was nothing available in the market which could easily solve that. If we had to do that late at the night, we had to get up and sort of do it, right? We wanted to build a brand which would understand these pain points of consumers and build for that, right? Rather than starting the build idea from assuming what is the kind of market size and how will I get share in that market size, right? Rather than starting from that as an assumption, starting from an assumption, what do people need, right? And how do I solve that, right? And all of these, the problem became passion and that passion became this brand. 2016 is when we left our full-time job, started working on this. And at the end of the year is when we launched Mama Earth as Asia's first made safe certified brand with a set of baby care products. And since the beginning, one of the core things apart from listening to consumers, being digital first that we have been married to, so to say, then is that this century belongs to why-based brands and not what-based brands and which is actually my segue into purpose-based brands, right? So we believe that in the last century, a lot of brands that were created were largely actually category creations, right? Where you were trying to explain to a consumer, hey, what is a shampoo, right? And why should they use it? Especially when you look at Indian market and you were trying to create categories and when you're trying to create categories, it's the what that matters. And now at the evolution that we are at where there is strong penetration when it comes to category development and people are not as bothered about a what, right? They know it's a shampoo and it cleanses, right? They're more bothered about the why, right? As to when they buy into the brand, right? What are they buying into? And what would they talk about when they have to tell the story of their choice to themselves or to someone else, right? Which is where why sort of comes into play. And when people, and there are a lot of examples of this change happening. Apple is a great example of a why-based brand, right? And when you buy into Apple's design philosophy, you buy into whatever Apple sells. It's not just phones, you would buy into that ecosystem, right? Back home in India, what Patanjali was doing was again a great example of a why-based brand when being built because you were buying whoever, whichever households were buying into the why and were actually buying, you know, then Patanjali across categories, right? So that's a strong belief that we have that millennials will want to find differentiators beyond what, right? And that differentiator is going to lie in the why and how of brands, right? Rather than what you're selling. And as why and how becomes more important in making some of these brand choices and is where, you know, a purpose sort of comes into play. And that's what we've been married to since we started. And we've been building a purposeful brand and goodness inside has been that the culmination or encapsulation of that purpose. And Mama Earth, you know, is born out of that purpose, right? And that purpose actually, the framework that we use internally in which I'll talk about in terms of explaining how we are sort of then building and communicating the purpose-based brand is on three P's structure. And the first P is product, right? How does the brand live its purpose through the product, right? So if goodness inside is a purpose philosophy, then at a product level, and it basically means that there is no nasties in this product and it's only goodness inside, right? From the product construct perspective. And that is very important, you know, that your purpose shouldn't lie only in your communications. It has to start from your product. And then comes the how, right? Which is processes. And which is where we have multiple pieces which point back to the goodness inside way of life that Mama Earth believes in, right? So we are a PETA certified brand. We don't test on animals. And we are a plastic positive brand. We recycle more plastic than we consume. In fact, last month, for example, we would have helped recycle 120 tons of plastic. And we have a first in the world initiative called plant goodness. And where every time you place an order on our website, we actually link it back to a tree that we have planted. And we send a picture of that tree, geolocation of that tree to you in your email, right? So that you can actually see the contribution that you have made to the world, not just to yourself by buying great products, right? But also to the environment because of the action that you took. And now that's our how, right? Which is our processes part, where goodness inside comes to life because of these things that we do. And then there is the part about perspective and which is really where the why sort of lies. And this is where brand brings forward its point of view or a cultural point of view into the world. And where we believe goodness is an action, right? Goodness is a choice. And hence for us, beauty, then while for some other brands, it could be beauty could be how you look. And for some other brands, beauty could be how you feel, right? But for Mama Earth, beauty is a verb, right? And hence beauty is what you do that makes you beautiful rather than how you look or how you feel. And that's the big perspective and point of view through which we want to sort of communicate our purpose and connect emotionally with our consumers, right? And when you communicate all of these things together across multimedia, is when you're able to get a consumer to connect with your why. And when they buy into your why, then like I said, they'll buy whatever from you, not just what. And they will also have a strong story to tell. And when someone asks them why this, then they will be actually able to tell them that this is the reason why I believe I buy this brand, right? And we'll be, we'll see this philosophy shaping up far more in India over the next couple of decades. And as categories evolve, as brands evolve, as the digital ecosystem further evolves. And in US, for example, there are, there are great examples of Tom's shoes or Patagonia and seven generation where some of these purpose stories have played really well. And we believe, you know, in the next couple of decades, it's the time for purpose-based brands to sort of, you know, take shape and do exceptionally well. And especially with the onslaught of social media, and which is really all about storytelling, right? I mean, it is social which has turned into media, right? And earlier avatar, social used to live in form of word of mouth, right? Which used to be conversations about conversation-worthy stuff. And you would not do conversations, you know, about the fact that you've used something which was, which was a what-based or something which was a good lensing in the morning, right? But you would have conversations about conversations-worthy stuff. And that's what social media helps you do. And we have seen the influencer ecosystem, the social ecosystem shaping really well to again support these purpose-based brands, right? And to provide impetus to how they will take shape in future. And we have closely used some of these, you know, engines to get our story out there, to spread it in the right manner. And we will continue to do more of that as we sort of get into future. I think in a short suite summary, that is what I had to say from a purpose perspective and how we believe building purpose-based brands is going to be extremely, you know, useful for all, you know, large CPG companies as well as it's a way through which we'll all end up driving a 360 impact rather than just impacting, you know, top lines and bottom lines, right? We'll actually be able to have a triple bottom line impact as well. And hopefully we will see a lot more purpose-based brands getting built over the next decade. Right, thank you so, so much, Varunalak. I think last 15 minutes you spoke out everything that wasn't on mine, but I just have one question that is coming in. Your market is your teachers, consumers in tier one and tier two cities, but tier three is still a long way to go, is what I see. What are your plans for tier three city in the coming days? Actually, I wouldn't say tier three is far away from us. In fact, especially during the last 12 months and we have seen our tier three and beyond contributions to go up significantly. In fact, from a contribution perspective, it has gone up by 50% in the last 12 months, right? And we now are servicing more than 2,500 towns across India and from our own platform itself. And then beyond that, the other e-commerce platforms would be adding further reach to this number. And even physically from an offline presence perspective, we are there in close to 100 cities, right? All the smart cities which are there. So, especially the last 12 months, we have seen a lot of positive pull for the brand because of what it stands for, what it believes in. And people are clearly looking for options which are safer, more natural and have a positive impact on the society. And so, because of that, we have seen a lot of pull from all quarters, not just a tier one and tier two specific quarter. So, 2020 must be the year where, you know, the numbers would have increased, the business would have increased, the consumer requirements must have increased because a lot of babies were born in the month of, in the year 2020, I'm sure you agree with that, right? And so, where do you see 2021 going from here? In fact, one of the things that I must qualify is that while we started as a baby care brand and baby care is one part of our portfolio now and it contributes about 20 odd percent to the brand, right? Our adult skin care, adult hair care, body care business is actually fairly large as well. And that is what a Y-based brand sort of helps you do, right? Because when consumers start buying into the brand, they'll start buying it for the whole family. And when they start using it themselves, they'll start referring to the family of friends, relatives, you know, and hence the categories also sort of, you know, start spreading. So, the same person who's buying baby care is also buying stuff from themselves, right? So, it's actually expanded quite a lot in terms of scope. We have over 200 products now. And from our 2021 perspective, yes, I think going further deep and building the awareness funnel would be one of the core objectives, right? And hence, you know, outside, while 2020, large part of our advertising was limited to digital mediums and you will also see us going live aggressively on traditional mediums like TV in 2021 and to push out our awareness into deeper quarters as well as to provide cover for the horizontal and offline distribution that we intend to do. So, in the coming days, I'm gonna see a lot of TV commercials that's gonna be all about your brand and products. I'm sure about that. Absolutely, they're already on, by the way. They're already on, okay. So, I think I'm missing out completely for sure. But Arun, thank you for joining us here. One last thing I have in mind. There's so much you're doing for, if you look at it from a prospect where you're serving in Ronman, you're doing so much more across and it's about two days back was a World Water Day. And so, did you do anything special about those days? Do you celebrate these days in your organization? Also, you know, honestly, we strongly believe that there are a few things that if you can do them really well rather than doing everything to a little extent then it makes a much bigger difference like that. And we also believe that, you know, in the longer term, we're building a company which will have a house of brands. So, while Marmarth has chosen its play around a certain areas of, let's say environment of sustainability where it is making an impact, and there are going to be other brands which will stand for and which will take stand on some of the other issues, right? Could be varied from water conservation to, you know, party to education to a child. You know, we don't know, but the view is that over time and the house of brands will try to make as much difference to the society because of the brands that we sell and how they contribute back. And hence as a company, we'll have a much wider footprint in being able to make that. As you say this, Varun, I have no doubt about it. And so the consumer of our country who has no doubt that, you know what, Marmarth and the entire derma company that you're leading right now is got so much more in the coming future. Thank you so much for joining us here. It was great talking to you and I can't wait to meet you in person and discuss much more in terms of what's the plan like for the coming days and coming here. But thank you so much for joining us and I wish you great luck for the year 2021 to you and your partner and your entire team. Thank you so much again. Thank you, thank you so much. It was a pleasure being here.