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The color of success
During World War II, some paint companies were doing business in India; some were foreign companies. During World War, the import of paint was banned in India, which turned into significant benefits for local companies. To seize this opportunity, 26-year-old Champaklal Choksi joined hands with his three friends, started a paint company in Bombay in 1942. This paint company means Asian paints.
Champaklal was very skillful in strategy-making by collecting information about where the paint is sold more, how the market etc. In those days, lime was used for decorative paint. The support of Distributors was an essential factor to establish Asian paint as a brand, but at that time, Champaklal was ignored by most of the distributors in a major city. Despite the initial failure, Champaklal's enthusiasm did not diminish, and he started his first distributorship in Sangli, a small town in Maharashtra.
The shopkeepers of a small town were proud to join the company directly instead of distributors. Besides, the price of paint was also competitive. The states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra celebrate festivals like Pongal and Polla when farmers decorate bullocks for a good season with their horns painted. Seeking this as an opportunity, the company launched small boxes of bright paint. Choksi was planning each strategy with little consideration. He used to say that a poor man would not paint his whole house but would indeed paint the entrance. In the early years, when the company was small, R K Lakshman - a famous cartoonist, was entrusted with making the company mascot considering the need to create its consumer-friendly image. Cartoon mascots were famous in the ad industry at the time. Initially, the work had many problems, but soon Lakshman was inspired by smoke coming out of chain-smoking and created a picture of a young boy. Thus the famous Mascot came into existence.
The company organized a contest to name the Mascot, and it was named 'Gattu.' That Gattu was shown making fun with a paintbrush. The company's tagline "Any surface that needs painting needs Asian Paints" was also used in the advertisement. RK Laxman showed Gattu very humorously.
Anand is the CEO of Asian Paints today. As per the company's tradition, after deep research, the company launched the washable distemper in 1950, which proved to be very successful. Led by all these successes, Asian Paints became India's largest paint company in 1967. At the same time, Choksi and his partners started hiring people other than family. One of them was KBS.
Today, with its unique branding and quality, Asian Paints has become one of the world's leading paint companies. Asian paint has been at the number one position in India for the last 50 years.
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