Why Godrej Consumer Products set up an in-house ad agency?

Homegrown consumer goods giant, Godrej Consumer Products, is focusing on the craft of its ads more than ever before. On April 1, 2023, the company formed its own internal advertising agency – the Light Box – which is led by Tom Dawes, and supported by Shalini Avadhani and Gaurav Kumar.

In a LinkedIn post, Sudhir Sitapati, CEO, Godrej Consumer Products, shared Light Box's showreel. He further explained why Light Box was set up. "We spend over Rs 1,000 crore on advertising globally and felt that we needed a bunch of crazy, creative people who dreamed, bathed, dressed, coloured, smelt and even killed with our brands (I’m leaving out the verb for our newest acquisition, Kama Sutra). We’ve created some really fun and powerful ads with Light Box over the last few months."

Sitapati's favourite work from Light Box so far is the latest Goodknight ad, starring actor Zeeshan Ayyub. In this commercial, breaks gender stereotypes. "Our brand proposition is that Goodknight ‘prevents mosquitos from disturbing your baby’s sleep’ and our advertising idea is around ‘dads who try’. It’s an empathetic (not provocative) take on equal parenting, and we hope we can nudge dads into walking out of meetings to try to put their kids to sleep," explained Sitapati.

In its latest annual report, Godrej Consumer Products said, the implied value of Goodknight business based on the current market capitalisation of the company is around Rs 30,000 crore, which was bought by the group's FMCG arm in just Rs 100 crore in 1994. The company is a market leader in the fast-growing home insecticide (HI) market in India with the powerful brand Goodknight and HIT. The company’s total market capitalisation is around Rs 1.08 lakh crore. Eariler this year, the company acquired FMCG business of Sighanias promoted Raymond Consumer Care along with Kamasutra and Park Avenue brands for close to Rs 2,825 crore.