Beards and Acquisitions

Colgate-Palmolive buys 14% stake in Bombay Shaving Company

This news caught my eyes, as why #Colgate is taking over a company with 16 cr of annual sales; that too in a company called Bombay Shaving Company. I mean, i see most people sporting beards these days; who shaves?

And then i realized from stats that its true. That the trend of beards is here, the shaving razors vol is growing by 6% vs 18% a few years ago. Though, a new category of beard care products like wax, oils etc is growing by 16%. I guess, even trimmers industry must be growing exponentially.

And that is the reason, most of men FMCG companies are buying or developing porfolio in this space. Be it #Marico buying stake in #Beardo or #Wipro consumer investing in Happily Unmarried (#Ustara).

And why not. Most of popular men in india are in the beard club. Be it Men in blue lead by #kohli (i guess 80%, follow the captain and have beards), bollywood actors (#Ranveer Singh)and models in advertising, all are in sync with this trend. And social media throws at you enough content on beard care, styling and so on.

Its been more than 1.5 yrs now, i havent shaved as well!

#consumer #trends

4 stages of Life - Where r u?

What is #life? A continuous #movement from one #stage to another? Which stage you are in? What are you trying to accomplish? Why are you #running so hard? To get somewhere? Or to run away from somewhere? Whats your life #purpose?

One of my favourite author of 'The subtle art of not giving a f*ck' - Mark Manson puts it interestingly on his blog; that life is composed of 4 stages -

1. #Mimicing - We mimic others to learn from other - parents, teachers to society. Resultant effect is that we discover, we are not good ourselves and keep looking for social approvals. Lasts till early adulthood.

2. #SelfDiscovery - With adulthood, our conquest to discover ourselves begins. And we hit & try, and experience and soak in as much as we can to find a meaning. What we are good at? What is my life's mission? Good or bad learnings. What u should do and  what not & so on. Lasts till late thirties.

3. #Commitment - This is rightly so the golden period. U discovered what u r good at. And realize that time is limited. U focus & build ur life's work there. Lasts till retirement.

4. #Legacy - This is last stage where u realized time is close. And rather than building, u should pass the life's essence to others as legacy.

#Think about it. Hard.
#mustread
Blog - https://markmanson.net/four-stages-of-life

Amazon Prime Vs Flipkart Plus ?

Being a loyalty program creator myself, it is exciting news that one of the best loyalty programs of the world (#Amazon #Prime) is getting some competition from its prime competitor in India, #Flipkart.

Flipkart is now launching Flipkart #Plus wherein they have roped in benefits from #BookMyShow, #Makemytrip and content from #Hotstar. Apart from that, obvious benefits of faster delivery/exciting deals/free shipping etc.

However, its a moot point that whether a consumer will enroll in Plus to get discounts at BMS or MMT? Is this benefit unmatchable or even required? A loyalty program needs to create special experiences for consumers which cant be matched by anybody else.

Amazon Prime with its original content like Breathe or Inside Edge is simply unmatchable (except netflix). A hotstar cant even stand in competition to that.

And Amazon Music with its ad free music also cant be matched even with saavn/gaana (with ads). Thats another unmatchable benefit.

An indian consumer anyways enjoys points/discounts at BMS/MMT, there is nothing new there.

Plus on paper is on a backfoot vs Prime. And thats why its not paid. Its free. How it fares, Time will tell.

#consumer #ecommerce #loyalty #crm #marketing