Colors Of Growth
Berger Paints
Canvassing Berger’s growth by developing a multi-faceted core strategy
The Indian paint industry, while growing at a rate of about 15% CAGR, remains significantly underpenetrated. There are less than 0.1mn outlets in the country, primarily saturated around mid-to-large urban centers, leaving rural and emerging urban areas significantly underrepresented.
Urbanization is expected to rise dramatically, with some projections reporting that almost 41% of the population will be living in cities by 2030.
New urban housing projects are being launched to meet the growing demand. The government of India has been increasing its investment in ‘Housing For All’ and ‘Affordable Housing’ schemes in successive budgets, projected to build about 3.7mn houses in urban areas.
Berger’s presence wasn’t optimized to leverage promising industry trends. To remain competitive, they needed to enhance their retail experience and drive deeper customer engagement.
Post conducting a thorough analysis of the current and future trends, we identified a two-fold opportunity:
- Market Expansion - Identify high-potential geographies with low-brand visibility to establish a first-movers’ advantage.
- Future Growth Potential - Target rural-urban fringe areas that are poised for urbanization by 2030, ensuring early market dominance as these geographies evolve into growth hubs.
A detailed market potential analysis revealed a key insight. We noticed that almost every urban center has a linkage, an association, with 4 high-potential rural centers. Leveraging these rural-urban connections allowed us to focus on clusters that could significantly amplify Berger’s visibility.
Additionally, our strategy emphasised establishing trust within the underpenetrated community. Through extensive liaison efforts, we crafted to induce trust in the multiplicative future growth of the paint industry.
To translate Berger’s vision into reality, we redesigned over 4000 retail outlets, transforming them into interactive product demo zones. These spaces enabled contractors and one-time consumers to experience Berger’s products firsthand, experimenting with colors, textures, and finishes.
Enhanced Store Identification
To enhance store identification, our storefronts featured mesh-colored lava shapes to showcase dynamic color fusion.
Dangling Victorian-inspired signage added a heritage touch, ensuring visibility and recognizability from a distance, which reinforces Berger’s legacy.
Product-centric Layout
The layout of the stores was designed to emphasize Berger’s product range, with clearly labeled sections for paints, putty, interior, and exterior paints. This allowed for efficient exploration, enabling them to pick the best product for their needs.
Interactive Experience Zone
The interactive experience lounge was a deliberate shift from a ‘traditional paint store setup’, acting more as a place of inspiration than a warehouse. Keeping the individual homeowners in mind, it was designed as a dedicated place where they could engage with Berger’s product in a hands-on environment. By letting them experiment with colors, textures, and combinations, we enabled an emotion-led decision-making process.
Live Demo Spaces
The live demo space was designed to provide an interactive, real-time experience of Berger's product range. By showcasing samples on specially crafted shelves, customers could compare various finishes by visualizing how the product would look in their own homes.
We also introduced an innovative digital experience within Berger’s outlets. Interactive screen equipped with custom software allowed customers to input the dimensions of their place, along with furniture color and existing decor elements, post which the customer was provided with a personalized paint recommendation that complemented their space.
Visual Merchandising
Strategic visual merchandising strategy complemented this audience shift. A 3-tier display was equipped with all the latest products to promote the push direct to individual consumers, while the Point-Of-Purchase (POP) area at the checkout intrigued them with quick-fix tools and products.
Key takeaway
By transforming retail experiences, integrating digital-to-store conversions, and pioneering new distribution pathways, Berger improved their brand recall, rural distribution, and digital-to-store conversions in the process.
Through the power of insight-led expansion, their market share surged, and the annual revenue reported a climb.
but work wonders in the real world.
