‘Asian Paints’:This colourful venture came into existence in pre-independence era after British ban on paint imports

Shivani Kava, Feb 21, 2021, 1:58 PM IST

Asian paints, started by four Mumbai-based friends in the early 1940s, was a reaction to a temporary ban on importing paints placed by the British in India.

Champaklal Choksey, Chimanlal Choksi, Suryakant Dani, and Arvind Vakil decided to venture into an untapped territory resulting in the birth of ‘Asian Oil and Paint Company Private Limited.’

This 79-year-old company, which was randomly named out of a telephone directory is currently Asia’s third-largest paint company and operates in 16 countries across the world.

How a company with roots in the pre-independence era dominates the paint industry today?

As mentioned above, the paint business was an untapped market in India back in the 1940s, in order to speed up the distribution process across the country, Asian paints came up with tiny packets as opposed to giant tins. In 1945, the company tied up with small distributors in every corner. The same year the company clocked a revenue of Rs. 3.5 lakh with only five colors- black, white, red, blue, and yellow.

By 1954, Asian paints decided to initiate a marketing campaign to reflect their philosophy, and thus Gattu, the notorious kid with a paint bucket and brush in his hand was born. The mascot was created by legendary illustrator, RK Laxman.

Gattu went on to become the face of Tractor Distemper and the tagline ‘Don’t lose temper, use Tractor Distemper’ changed the perspective of people that one need not wait for the peel of paint to come off in order to re-paint.

Keeping up with the trends 

Asian paints has always stayed ahead of its time, from its first-ever TV commercial in 1984 to establishing call-center operations and a website in 1998-99, the brand today uses social media to its benefit and has great followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

The company’s success can be credited to its consistent quality and adapting to current market trends.

Asian Paints pioneered the movement of deploying tinting machines inside store premises and today Asian paints alone has 50,500 machines, while its competitors Nerolac and Berger deploy about 46,000 tinting machines.

Present actions

Today the company manufactures a wide range of paints for Decorative and Industrial use.

In Decorative paints, Asian Paints is present in all four segments – Interior Wall Finishes, Exterior Wall Finishes, Enamels, and Wood Finishes.  It also offers Waterproofing,  wall coverings, and adhesives in its product portfolio.

Asian paints recently launched the ‘Viroprotek’ range of hand, Surface, and space sanitizers and disinfectants.  It is also offering ‘San Assure’ a sanitization service and ‘Safe Painting’ service for its customers.

Asian Paints has also recently launched a range of Furniture, Furnishings, and Lighting Products under three brands – Nilaya, Royale, and Ador, thus offering a wide spectrum of offerings in the ‘Home Décor’ category. The company also launched ‘Beautiful Homes Service’ – an exclusive end-to-end solution that provides consumers a personalized interior design service with professional execution to create their dream homes.