HLL - The lead Social Marketing Organisation (SMO) with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare & National Aids Control Organisation

HLL has always been a part of the various Family Planning efforts being undertaken by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). During the last 4 years, HLL has been able to establish itself as the numero-uno Social Marketing Organization (SMO) in the country. With the NACO program experience, HLL strongly believes in the need for a dynamic team to meet the requirements of the emerging challenges of rural and non-traditional reach. This team will implement based on the broad frame work coupled with state specific approach for each state, thus help us integrate our ideas and in the long run achieve our Social Program Objective – ‘pioneer innovative social models inspired by opportunity, for community participation & happy living, built on technical excellence and sustained by trust’. HLL has the unique distinction of being the leading SMO in India and at the same time a commercial organisation. Taking the many challenges into consideration and HLL’s vast experience in promoting condoms in the commercial and subsidised category state specific plans to integrate the NACO Condom Social Marketing Programme with our Consumer Business Division (CBD) operations by capacity building our CBD team members. HLL’s ambition is to take Condom Social Programming in India to a new level.

NACO Condom Social Marketing

Ministry of Health and Family welfare (MoHFW) and National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) are keen on engaging Social Marketing Organisations and private marketing companies in expanding the access, demand and use of condoms. The programme comprises of interventions to make condoms available in non-chemist outlets, train condom retailers, implement local and mid media complementing the national mass media generic promotion for condoms by National Aids Control Organisation and National Rural Health Mission. Under this public private partnership condoms will be provided at subsidised price for marketing companies and social marketing organisations as per the approved social marketing scheme of MoHFW. HLL has been promoting condoms commercially since 1990s and began implementing state level targeted condom programmes since 1997. HLL entered the National League for NACO programme only in March 2009, with a total project outlay of INR 4.83 crore spread over three projects covering 20 districts of Chhattisgarh, PHC (Punjab, Haryana & Chandigarh) and West Bengal. HLL in its continuation of NACO programme implemented the programme between July 2010 - June 2011 with a total project outlay of INR 3.48 crore spread over the 10 districts of PHC (Punjab, Haryana & Chandigarh), the performance of HLL against the challenging benchmarks has been over 100%, consistently. HLL’s vast experience in promoting condoms in the commercial as well as subsidised category coupled with state specific strategies, helped achieve the challenging benchmarks. Currently HLL is implementing the NACO Condom Social Marketing Programme in Maharastra, Gujarat, Karnataka (May 2012 – April 2013) and also the extension (till 30th Sep 2012) of Punjab , Haryana, Chandigarh project. The Condom Social Marketing project in the new states envisages a manpower strength of over 600 employees. This will help us reach hither-to un-tapped rural markets. The total current outlay of HLL’s Social Projects is over INR 50 crore. Social Marketing Programmes have enabled HLL test and fine-tune some of the concepts and ideas across functional areas and the scale-up of these was implemented during 2012-13. In a nut shell the plan envisages communicating with stockists / retailers directly, develop cost-effective models for continuously communicating with consumers 1 to 1 and develop alternate/self-sustainable distribution models.

Condom Social Marketing Programme   – An Opportunity

13.6% urban and 5.8% rural consumers use some form of contraception. Estimates indicate that there are nearly 21 billion sex acts per annum in India and this situation brings with it many-fold challenges. Several studies and research have documented these challenges in the form of basic product, distribution / logistics, pricing/ margins and communications to reach rural consumers.

Learning’s from Social Marketing Programme Vs our current operations

• Basic infrastructure:improve basic sales process, appointing and training stockiests
• Field working: consistent field working, improve the role of stockiest salesman
• Quality of coverage: improve frequency of coverage
• Demand generation: focus and design of demand generation plan and roll-out
• Market-share: stagnant / decline, adequate focus on profitability / sustainability
• Outlet expansion: basic sales process to drive outlet expansion, focus on repeat selling quality of coverage, coverage increase in rural
• Management quality: understanding sales fundamentals (gifts), regular field visits, review, correction and control
• Deluxe Nirodh: Drive Deluxe Nirodh sales and demand generation, expand overall market
• Product Range: offering a basket of Healthcare products through the same channel for sustainability.

Monitoring & Evaluation

In this changing scenario, the mechanisms evolved to track and monitor the secondary sales, streamlining the route / beat plans, validation of the reported data etc. will help us develop fool-proof and robust systems that will ensure that the benchmarks are achieved in a timely manner.

Bright prospects for more Social Marketing Programmes

• Current activities under Social Marketing Programmes are funding / Subsidy driven stand alone models and benchmark focussed without looking at the cost of servicing and sustainability.
• Distribution ineffective to deliver results for rural reach and hence need to explore unconventional and innovative methods.

The retail driven model that is widely practiced in the commercial / subsidised condom distribution needs to be strengthened and reinforced with additional infrastructure available which will deliver results and sustainability.

Missing links and inference

To bring about synergy and long term sustainability HLL will look to address the following missing links in the current Social Marketing Programme context.

• Partnerships for community participation
• Political engagement of local opinion leaders
• Policy level interactions for bringing changes in the product and offering a range

With the addition of new products like Sanitary Napkins, Blood Glucometer etc. in our product range the social project experience helps us evolve various models in partnership with various state government departments, commercial organisations and NGOs. With the string of achievements behind it, HLL has emerged as a force to reckon in the healthcare project sector. An ever increasing service potential lies ahead, for which HLL is geared to set more milestones in the coming years.