How Dolo 650 killed BIG pharma🔪
Selling 3.5 billion tablets during pandemic is no joke 🤯
Welcome to the 54th edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
If you’re reading this, it means you’ve survived the pandemic.
That means you’ve taken at least 1 Dolo-650
This is the story of how a made in India pill killed the market for not one but 37 paracetamol tablets in India through the right marketing initiatives.
Quick back story 🗓
The Dolo-650 you know today, was actually first launched in the year 1973 as ‘Dolopar’. After its wide acceptance, Micro Labs, the Chennai based manufacturer decided to re-launch Dolopar as Dolo-650 in 1993.
Why are we talking about it today?
Dolo-650 caused a dent in the pharmaceutical world. Slowly and steadily, the home grown brand beat global giants like GSK Pharmaceuticals’ Crocin. This growth is laudable because this wasn’t sudden, but planned. 😎
Here’s what Dolo did right 🎯
😎 Distribution!
To distribute the tablets, Dolo didn’t go to the customers, it went to the source of prescriptions - ‘The Doctors’. The brand began gaining the trust of those responsible for prescribing it and soon enough from private doctors to government care packets - everyone asked for Dolo-650.
🤔 User Research
Micro Lab’s chairman Dilip toutes that the product is born out of needs. The regular Paracetamol (500 mg) weren’t aiding the full needs of the customers. Dolo-650 filled that gap for the users & became the go-to tablet for 5+ symptoms that one catches during viral fever.
🤩 Perceived Value
You say, naam mein kya rakha hain (What’s in the name?) - but the incredible Dolo-650 had a lot to do with it. When other brands launched their paracetamol tablets in the 500-milligram, Dolo was the only one in the 650 segment, slowly insinuating an additional 150 mg worth of wellness.
✅ More quantity meant better results/ more effective
✅ The bigger size was also ergonomically friendly to make it easy to swallow
🤯 Content marketing
Like a cherry on the cake, an incredibly potent move, Dolo powered the vaccination drive. It put up posters across almost all vaccination centres answering commonly asked questions by patients.
Why you ask?
3 words - trust, credibility, and awareness. They even distributed Dolo-650, along with masks and sanitisers to health workers, literally oiling their distribution engine from the ground. In fact, in an article, Dilip Surana, chairman and managing director at Micro Labs Limited said
During the COVID period, our 600-plus medical representatives and managers worked (adhering to the guidelines of the government) in the field and ensured that Dolo-650 was available at places where it mattered.
😂 They got the memes
Before you proceed further, just type #dolo650 on Instagram or Twitter - you’ll know where we’re getting at. Now who’s to know whether this was UGC or a branded plug, but the point is, Dolo got the internet talking.
That’s the Dolo story, folks 🍿
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