Retail Marketing - Shopping Center Marketing

From its modest beginnings in 1942, in a tiny garage in Mumbai, the Asian Paints brand has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few decades. With a focus on product innovation and quality through a consumer-centric approach, Asian Paints has achieved a leadership position in the Indian paint industry. Today, the brand has an enviable network of 20 paint manufacturing facilities and services consumers in roughly 65 countries.

The Asian Paints brand has evolved with the times by adjusting its branding strategy to changing marketplace needs and priorities. In the mid-nineties, Asian Paints decided to position itself as a premium brand to differentiate its product from being perceived as a mass brand. This strategy did not work. The paint industry is a commodity driven one, with price being the most important differential. Asian Paints learned an important branding lesson: connect with, and listen to, your consumers.

What Asian Paints learned from this lesson is apparent today in the company’s website. The Asian Paints’ site is comprehensive, serving as a one-stop “painting solutions” provider for customers. From painting tips to online shade cards, there are a host of user-friendly services to appeal to a homemaker. But how did the brand go from not knowing its place in the market to becoming a major contender?

The brand aggressively invested in consumer research efforts and realized that Indian consumers preferred painting their homes during festivals. Painting the home signified a new beginning, and, fittingly, the Asian Paints brand unveiled the tagline “Celebrate with Asian Paints” to tap into this consumer demographic in the Indian market. This was the first step the brand took in establishing an emotional connection with the consumer in a low-involvement category.

Over the years, the seasonal aspect of painting a home in India changed and homemakers gradually came to associate painting with home décor and interiors. Choosing a paint brand became a high-involvement category, particularly in the decorative segment with the focus of the brand shifting from the builder to the homeowner. As consumers became more involved in the decision making process, the company realized that an online presence would perhaps serve as an important tool to engage this new audience.

The homepage for Asian Paints is colorful, uncluttered and informative. The top menu bar is well-organized and offers pull-down menus that list everything from store locations to color palettes and painting guides—a straightforward approach to artistic ambitions and possibilities.

Assuming the role of a customer care executive, the Expert Help section educates customers on the intricacies of paint. The Painting Guide provides insight on the painting process, while the Paint Calculator provides a rough estimate on the cost of painting a particular room or area. The company has taken the step of providing a live chat service called Ask Aparna, but sadly this service did not work when tested. This is something the brand must seriously revisit as it might impact the overall perception of the brand and its commitment to customer service in a negative way.

Browsing through the Ideas and Makeover section is like flipping through a colorful home magazine. Here users learn about the season’s color trends and find color suggestions based on the theme of one’s home. A young mother, for example, wanting to provide her child with creatively colored walls, can visit the Kids World subsection where she can learn about more adventurous options like glow paint, fluorescent paint and chalkboard paint.

When it comes to color options, Asian Paints certainly has plenty to offer. A color guide enlightens the consumer on different colors, whereas color matchmaking allows users to see photographs of rooms painted according to specific color palettes. Consumers also have the option of picking up color samplers from the retail outlet, Color World, which allows customers to sample the product on a wall before making a purchase.

The Products section of www.asianpaints.com provides an overview of what the company has to offer. This section is particularly well-designed, and users have to make a selection (for example, by application or brand) to arrive at the product range. Accompanying details describing each product are useful and allow users to understand the product before making a purchase at a store. Industrial paint users can take advantage of a whole new site, where they can surf through the different categories of paint by area of application.

The company has done well in devising a separate menu bar on the homepage regarding details about the company. From The Company to Press Room, the different links transport users to their respective areas of interest. All these sections are very informative, and one can learn about the company’s history, current happenings and gain access to relevant financial information.

While, as a whole, the company’s effort regarding its website is comprehensive, there is—just like any home—always room for improvement. The site could use an application similar to US-based paint company Sherwin Williams’ color visualizer, where visitors can experiment with different colors and shades of paint—on bathroom walls or living room ceilings, for example—before making a decision.

Nonetheless, these are just minor enhancements that could add more interactivity to the site. In terms of design and content, the website paints a colorful picture of the offline brand. And if you want to ask Aparna anything, try finding her at an actual store using the Dealer Locator function.

[Story by Pretti Khicha at Brandchannel]