Patanjali Ayurveda’s Coronil: Marketing Controversy on COVID-19 Cure

The launch of Patanjali’s Coronil was indeed one of the most talked about marketing stunt during the Corona mayhem. Patanjali had been riding on a series of controversies since its inception, and since then, its marketing strategy had been disputed numerous times for its rectitude. Promotion of products without empirical and adequate clinical evidences was not new to Patanjali. In 2016, the retailing platform for India’s defence forces, the canteen stores department (CSD), suspended the sale of Patanjali’s flagship amla juice after it was deemed unfit for consumption by a state laboratory. Coronil’s launch was yet another controversial stint that was added to the bouquet of existing speculations on Patanjali’s misleading promotion strategy.

While Patanjali had received various industry awards and accolades, it was known to be using gimmicks to become one of the most popular brands in a very short span of time. It was awarded the prestigious Certificate for Significant Achievement in Food Safety and Certificate for Strong Commitment to Food Safety at 14th CII9 Food Safety, Quality and Regulatory Summit.

When Coronil was launched, it reignited speculations on the marketing strategy of the organization.

Since its launch, Patanjali had been operating on four main pillars—halo effect of brand Ramdev, alignment with government, pricing befitting the larger target market and reacting with agility to market needs.

1. Patanjali was leveraging a lot from the halo effect of the brand presence that yoga guru, Ramdev had formed over years of work towards yoga and Ayurveda. Since its commencement, Ramdev’s association and involvement had spontaneously tuned the customer mindset to perceive it as a range of products that was coming from the expert. The launch of Coronil had benefitted from it likewise.

2. Patanjali had very strategically aligned its vision to the ruling party and worked cohesively with the Government of India (GOI). A ministry (AYUSH) was formed to focus on the development of education and research in traditional Indian practices of Ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy. The ministry was undertaking various initiatives to support these fields of study, and Patanjali had been expediently riding on the bandwagon. The Indian government’s agenda of forsaking foreign products and ratifying local goods had provided further cushion for the launch. The brand encashed these sentiments to promote Coronil as the local ayurvedic solution to fight the pandemic.

3. Patanjali’s pricing was optimized for the price-sensitive middle class and the masses, which encompassed around 70% of the Indian population (refer to Exhibit 4). This set of customers were also the ones who were most influenced by Baba Ramdev and were willing to spend on the products due to his persuasion of natural and pure ayurvedic products that he had been endorsing even before the inception of Patanjali.

4. Patanjali had no match in understanding the gap in market and responding to it with agility. The launch of Patanjali aata noodles in 2015, immediately after the ban of Maggi, was a remarkable example of business agility. The launch of Coronil was another such case in point. While the wave of Corona was destroying nations altogether and the fear of the pandemic was at its peak, Patanjali launched Coronil. As per Exhibit 1, the number of deaths had increased five times within the span of a month. At that point, people were vulnerable and were willing to try anything and everything to keep corona away. The product name (Coro-nil) and packaging were all complementary to the strategic launch amidst this fear. Positioning products ambiguously through the aid of random statements, product name and packaging could be precarious, and the most pronounced risk would be to lose brand credibility and trust. However, the fact that Patanjali’s revenue soared tremendously failed all such hypotheses. Patanjali had not only managed to survive the situation vehemently, but it also brought about an incomparable trajectory to growth.

Patanjali leveraged earned media, deploying a low-cost, yet credible marketing vehicle. Considering that the probability of a news article or national television broadcast being accepted by customers was way higher than an advertisement, the information on Coronil’s proposed launch was disseminated very tactfully through PR activities and media interviews given by Balkrishna and Ramdev that acted as a platform for the final launch. The company claimed that it had appointed a team of scientists immediately after Covid-19 outbreak, for finding a cure and further established it as agile and solicitous. They also ensured GOI’s approval on the product to dodge any serious allegation against the brand.

While many experts reviled Patanjali’s supposed approach of employing controversy as their marketing strategy, the brand could have possibly benefitted from the situation. The backlash on social platforms could have easily been perceived as a ploy of foreign-based brands, and that reinforced active support for Patanjali.

Nevertheless, Patanjali’s marketing strategy was a paradigm of business agility and top-notch understanding of consumer behaviour.