It is always difficult to be a disruptor, as Samir Modi hopes to be.
The scion of the Modi family (his father is KK Modi of Modi Enterprises and owns Modicare, while his brother is Lalit Modi, the first chairman of the Indian Cricket League), set up ColorBar, a homegrown cosmetic brand, in 2004.
By next fiscal, Modi is aiming at a Rs 500 crore turnover, a massive jump from the Rs 60 crore in 2013. ColorBar controls 7 percent of the domestic beauty, skincare and wellness market valued at Rs 80,000 crore by KPMG. While Lakme has an almost unchallenged lead in the market with a 30 percent share, there is stiff competition between the four that follow. Strategy research firm Euromonitor puts ColorBar on the fifth position after Lakme, L’Oreal India, Modi Revlon (distributed by Modi’s uncle Umesh Modi) and Oriflame. ColorBar has about 7 percent of the market, but is considered a disruptor in the premium to affordable luxury end of the market.
And to think that in 2013, ColorBar’s turnover was Rs 60 crore and its sales were stagnating. This motivated the entrepreneur to rework the brand image and the positioning. He hired professional managers, changed the packaging and the positioning—from mass to ‘masstige’. While the word may sound fancy (he says it is a blend of mass and prestigious), what Modi means is that he upscaled operations and the products to catapult ColorBar into the affordable luxury space in India.
Samir Modi, Founder & Managing Director - ColorbarUpscaled To Affordable Luxury
Constantly innovating has been at the core of this transformation. The brand hired the firm that designs for Hermes and Cartier, which recommended changing the packaging colour from silver to rose gold/copper, considered far more fashionable shades in the beauty industry. Modi also launched a series of unconventional new products.
“We released the first tranche of the new products recently—a peel-off nail polish, which can be ‘peeled off’, making it extremely easy to use, very intense colour eyeliners, matt high-impact blushes and a range of non-transfer liquid lipstick, which will stay on for 18 hours and leave no traces. We also launched a luxury cream, which has the same formulation as other uber-luxury creams in the market but at a fraction of the cost. We use the same manufacturer and ingredients as La Prairie, but where they sell their cream at Rs 76,000, we sell it at Rs 5,000.”
The ‘Made in India’ affordable luxury brand will launch updated make-up retail havens and refurbish the current ones early this year. “It will have a lot of instagramable spaces. We will also be doing bespoke. We get asked questions such as: ‘I’m looking for a pink but I can't find the right pink for my skin; ‘I want to match my lipstick and my nail polish to my dress, but how do I do it?’ Our bespoke products will give consumers exactly what they want. We are working on a technology that will let them print their face—or the face of their friend or relatives—on the product and packaging. The focus is on experiential fun.”
Modi is in the process of buying a French company that can customise nail lacquer. “If you want a polish to match, say, the green in your dress or even ask us for three shades that can work with a particular dress, we will be able to deliver them.” In 2019, ColorBar will also focus on skincare for men. They already have a range, including a rather popular Girth Buster, a cream that helps deal with a growing girth, the perennial problem most Indian men struggle with.
"India poses several challenges. A large part of the country still does not incorporate cosmetics in their daily beauty routine,” he says. “Kaajal and lipstick are often the only make-up Indians use. Urban India has changed and that is where the growth has come from. By increasing the retail touch-points, we want to be present in every market where habits have changed, and more importantly, where they are changing.”
The plan is to spend Rs 150 crore over the next five years to set up 250 retail stores, of which few would be high-end concept retail outlets. “Northern and western India are our biggest markets but the south is growing quite well. India is several different countries in one, so we have to cater to varied demands: if northern India likes colours—dark browns, reds, magentas; western India leans towards light browns and naturals.” More importantly, ColorBar’s brought-up-to-code palette is focused on colours that work for all colour types. “The ‘fair and lovely’ dream sold by the Indian beauty industry has done a lot of damage.”
The Flamboyant Entrepreneur
Modi is known for his theatrical statements and exuberance and for talking philosophy rather than just pure business. For instance, at every given opportunity possible, he tells me that he is in the “business of making people beautiful, of making them feel good about themselves; make-up is just coincidental to that plan. It is about creating happiness at the end of the day”
He drops delightful details about himself all through the conversation: he doesn’t mind painting his nails “to check the texture and colour . I don’t clear anything that doesn’t go with my gut feeling. People ask me, how can a man understand what a woman wants? I have a wife and two daughters. If I don’t understand them, who will?”.
Modi is known to buy every make-up brand in the world possible (he shops almost every day for it) and the indie Korean brands are his rank favourite. “Like them, I am an indie brand. Like them, I hope to be both innovative and the best in the world.”
However, when pushed to talk nuts and bolts, he takes me through Colorbar’s 14 years, a brand he started on a whim “because I saw the opportunity in a space. Besides, I wasn’t great at academics. For years, my ambition was to work at Nirula’s,” says the Doon School alumni. “When I decided to set up ColorBar my father declared that the business would never be a success. There were too many foreign players and the market was too fragmented.”
Thankfully, KK Modi’s words did not prove to be prophetic. “For every brand, there is an evolution. I want to enter the world market. I want to be at an equal footing to a Chanel and Dior,” says Modi about the future path. Have you signed up for Primo, our daily newsletter? It has all the stories and data on the market, business, economy and tech that you need to know.
First Published: Jan 4, 2019 10:01 AM IST
Check out our in-depth Market Coverage, Business News & get real-time Stock Market Updates on CNBC-TV18. Also, Watch our channels CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar Live on-the-go!
Punjab Lok Sabha elections: Check full list of AAP candidates and constituencies
May 18, 2024 12:59 PM
PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi election rallies in Delhi today: Here are the routes to avoid
May 18, 2024 11:28 AM