Crompton 2.0: Tanmay Prusty’s consumer-first marketing reset

India’s consumer electronics and home durables market is experiencing strong momentum, propelled by rising disposable incomes, accelerating urbanisation and an expanding middle class that increasingly prioritises comfort, connectivity and convenience in everyday life.

Industry estimates indicate that India’s overall consumer electronics market was valued at about $89.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow to nearly $158.4 billion by 2034.

Within this larger electronics ecosystem, the consumer durables segment is undergoing a clear shift, with categories that were once purely utilitarian gradually transforming into experience-driven offerings.

Consumer behaviour is moving away from decisions centred solely on price and specifications, with buyers showing a greater willingness to upgrade to products that offer energy efficiency, durability, aesthetic appeal, smarter interfaces and strong lifestyle relevance.

Simultaneously, traditional media-heavy marketing approaches are being replaced by hybrid strategies that blend mass reach with digital engagement, content-led storytelling and platform-first thinking. This evolution is also intensifying competition, as global players expand their footprint and private labels grow more aggressive.

Consumers today expect brands to deliver more than just functional value, signalling that the rules of growth in the category are being fundamentally reshaped.

Against this backdrop, legacy brands such as Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals are rethinking how they engage consumers and drive growth beyond functional differentiation. In an exclusive interaction with PITCH, Tanmay Prusty, Chief Marketing Officer, said Crompton has been undergoing a subtle yet significant transformation—internally referred to as Crompton 2.0.

During the interaction, he outlined how Crompton is redefining marketing as part of this 2.0 journey, from undertaking one of the largest consumer studies in the category and strengthening alignment between marketing and R&D, to driving premiumisation through platform-led innovation while balancing mass media with digital, content and on-ground activations.

Crompton's Marketing Reset

Prusty, who took charge as Crompton’s CMO just under a year ago, is at the centre of this transformation. With experience spanning FMCG, consumer electronics and e-commerce, and stints at ITC, Reckitt, Amazon and Tata Consumer Products, his role at Crompton is focused less on incremental improvements and more on structurally reconfiguring how marketing functions within the organisation.

“It’s taken me around 11 months, and Crompton 2.0 represents a fundamental shift in how we will approach growth as an organisation. At its core, we are choosing to start with the consumer rather than the product,” Prusty said.

At a tactical level, this has meant repositioning marketing as a core driver of value creation. One of the earliest signs of this shift was Crompton’s decision to make a significant investment in consumer intelligence. The company conducted what Prusty describes as one of the largest studies in the consumer durables category, engaging nearly 18,000 consumers across India.

“The objective was to gain a deep understanding of how consumers interact with our categories—throughout the day, across seasons and at different life stages,” he said. “Their pain points, triggers, barriers and feature expectations were distilled into insights that now inform everyday business decisions.” These learnings are being integrated into product ideation, innovation roadmaps and communication development.

Crompton is transitioning from a manufacturing-led organisation to a truly consumer-first, marketing-driven brand. Central to this reset is a deliberate effort to move marketing upstream—from being the final step in the value chain to becoming one of the earliest inputs. “Marketing is shifting from the last step to the first. To do this at scale, consumer understanding must be embedded into product development, communication platforms and decision-making,” he added. This shift has resulted in much closer alignment between marketing, R&D and product teams.

Earlier, innovation and manufacturing decisions at Crompton were often taken in parallel, with marketing coming in closer to launch. Under Crompton 2.0, these functions are now being brought together much earlier. “R&D, product teams and central marketing are now closely integrated from ideation through implementation and launch,” Prusty said.

From a playbook perspective, this has altered how Crompton approaches innovation.

Instead of leading purely with specifications or technical superiority, teams are now anchored around consumer problems and real-world usage contexts. Whether it is airflow, water flow, energy efficiency or safety, the starting point is increasingly the consumer’s lived experience rather than the factory floor. In this model, marketing acts as the connective tissue—translating consumer insights into R&D briefs and then converting innovation into clear, relevant narratives for the market.

This expanded role of marketing is also evident in Crompton’s increased focus on brand building. Over the past two years, the company has meaningfully stepped up its advertising and promotion (A&P) investments, reinforcing marketing’s position as a growth driver rather than a support function.

Prusty said the company’s A&P spends now stand at around 3.5–4% of revenue. “Higher investment must be supported by stronger capabilities and deeper consumer understanding,” he said.

As previously reported by exchangemedia, Crompton increased its advertising spends by 14% in FY25.

Crompton's Push To Premiumisation & Omnichannel Scale

As Crompton recalibrates its marketing engine, premiumisation and e-commerce have emerged as parallel growth levers. Rather than choosing between performance-led digital growth and traditional brand building, the company is consciously adopting a hybrid model that reflects the realities of its category presence.

“While we are steadily increasing our presence in future-facing mediums, we also remain one of the most widely distributed offline brands, particularly in categories like fans.” Being among the largest water heater brands online while maintaining strong offline penetration, he added, requires marketing strategies that function seamlessly across channels. “You have to do justice to both online and offline, while continuing to experiment, scale what works and move away from what doesn’t.”

Premiumisation has become a key outcome of this approach. In fans, Crompton’s largest category, premium products now contribute nearly 25% of sales, up from the mid-teens three to four years ago. According to Prusty, this shift has been driven less by cosmetic enhancements and more by platform-led innovation.

Beyond fans, Crompton has extended this consumer-first premium philosophy across categories. Recent launches include the AirIQ chimney—an India-first innovation that uses real-time AQI sensors to address indoor air quality spikes during cooking—and Intellisense panels for water pumps, designed to ease consumer anxiety around water availability through automated sensing and transfer.

The company has also introduced anti-scale water heater technology engineered specifically for Indian hard water conditions, enhancing durability and performance. Each of these innovations, Prusty noted, begins with a clearly defined consumer problem and works backward, creating opportunities for trade-up and stronger value perception. E-commerce has played a crucial role in accelerating this shift. Crompton’s online business now exceeds Rs 1,000 crore in annual revenue and is growing at over 20% year-on-year.

Crompton's Storytelling Shift

In a category long dominated by functional messaging, Crompton is also rethinking how it tells its brand story. “For a long time, consumer durables communication has been driven by functional claims. But our products are deeply embedded in consumers’ lives,” Prusty said.

The shift, he explained, is towards showcasing innovation through everyday experiences rather than technical superiority alone. “We are trying to demonstrate innovation through quieter kitchens, safer water temperatures for families, visual comfort through lighting, and the way our products interact with consumers every day,” he said.

This approach allows Crompton to move into more emotionally resonant brand territories. “You can speak about comfort that feels personal, trust earned through consistent performance in the consumer’s home, and modern living enabled by intelligent products that simply do what they are meant to do,” Prusty added.

Over the past two years, Crompton has also reworked its communication architecture—from a largely category-led approach to a more cohesive master brand narrative.

While the brand is widely known as one of India’s largest fan manufacturers, it also has a strong presence in kitchen appliances and water heaters. This breadth, he said, enables Crompton to speak about homes, kitchens, bedrooms and living spaces through a unified brand lens rather than fragmented, category-specific messaging.

The company’s media mix has become far more integrated. While television continues to play a key role in delivering mass reach, it is now supported by higher investments in digital platforms, content partnerships and on-ground activations.

Crompton has collaborated with high-reach platforms such as Cricbuzz, sponsored podcasts and experimented with newer content-led associations. On-ground visibility has also been strengthened across high-footfall locations such as airports, malls and metro stations, reflecting the brand’s intent to balance scale with contextual, moment-led engagement across platforms.

Looking ahead, the focus is on scaling this hybrid marketing model, deepening premiumisation across categories and expanding relevance across regions.

For Crompton, the 2.0 journey is not about short-term reinvention, but about building a durable, consumer-first growth engine—one that balances mass reach with modern commerce, and scale with sophistication.