Pidilite Roff: Building a Category Through Product Education

Industry & Competitive Context

India's tile adhesive market sits within the broader construction chemicals sector and remains structurally underpenetrated. Multiple company disclosures spanning 2019 to 2026 consistently describe category penetration for tile adhesives (as opposed to traditional cement) as low Pidilite's own Chief Marketing Officer stated in August 2026 that category penetration stood at "only around 20–25%," a figure echoed in a March 2025 equity research note from Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL), which pegged tile-adhesive adoption at similarly low levels. An earlier company-endorsed case study circulated by Pidilite placed adhesive usage at roughly 20% of tiles installed, indicating that cement has remained the default fixing method across the bulk of Indian households for an extended period.

The competitive landscape includes both India-focused and multinational players. Independent market research (Polaris Market Research, Dataintelo) identifies Pidilite's Roff alongside BASF India, Ardex Endura, MYK LATICRETE, and Saint-Gobain Weber as the principal organized manufacturers in the segment, with the global tile and stone adhesive market estimated at USD 5.37 billion in 2024 and projected to grow to USD 11.47 billion by 2034 at a CAGR of approximately 7.9%. Distribution scale matters in this category: Roff has been reported to operate through more than 12,000 dedicated tile-adhesive dealers nationally, a network materially larger than that of at least one named competitor (Ardex Endura, at approximately 4,500 touchpoints), according to the same industry report.

Critically, the primary competitive threat for Roff has never been another adhesive brand but the incumbent practice itself. As Pidilite's then Chief Marketing Officer Vivek Sharma stated in an October 2019 interview with afaqs!, "the competition isn't other adhesives, the competition is cement." This framing competing against an entrenched habit rather than a rival brand has shaped Roff's marketing approach across multiple campaign cycles.

Brand Situation Prior to Campaign

Roff has been part of Pidilite's portfolio since 1988, according to the brand's own corporate history published on pidilite.com and roff.in, and has since been built into what the company describes as one of India's leading tile and stone-fixing solutions brands. Over time, Pidilite established a dedicated loyalty and training program for contractors the "Roff Champs" program, evolved from an earlier contractor loyalty initiative and, per the Roff website, had registered more than 18,000 contractors under this program as of an August 2023 site update. The brand also entered a joint venture with Litokol of Italy for specialized grouting technology, and maintains a presence in commercial construction chemicals.

Despite this institutional infrastructure, awareness gaps persisted at multiple levels of the purchase chain. Pidilite's own communications from 2019 through 2026 repeatedly cite two distinct but related problems: low consumer/homeowner awareness of tile adhesives as a category, and contractor reluctance to recommend adhesives over cement. A March 2025 Motilal Oswal research note on Pidilite specifically documented the mechanics of contractor resistance, noting that adhesive costs approximately twice that of cement and that roughly 70% of tile consumption in India is for flooring applications an area where cement has traditionally been considered "adequate" by masons, reducing their incentive to recommend a costlier alternative.

Roff's first dedicated consumer-facing television commercial was launched in October 2019, described by CMO Vivek Sharma at the time as the brand's "first-ever TVC," conceived by Ogilvy under Piyush Pandey, then Chief Creative Officer Worldwide and Executive Chairman India. Prior to this, per Sharma's own account, Roff's marketing effort had been directed almost entirely at contractors through training videos and in-person education, rather than at end consumers.

Strategic Objective

Across its various campaign phases, Roff's marketing has pursued a consistent strategic objective: category creation rather than brand-share capture. Sharma articulated this directly in 2019, stating that the goal was to "move the practice of fixing tiles with cement to fixing tiles with Roff adhesive," while acknowledging that the actual application decision rests with contractors and masons, not homeowners. The stated mechanism was therefore indirect arm consumers with enough awareness that they could initiate an informed conversation with their contractor at the point of home construction or renovation.

By 2023, this objective had evolved into a broader "consumer awareness campaign," with Deputy Managing Director Sudhanshu Vats framing the effort around informing and empowering customers to make well-informed choices regarding tile-fixing methods, and highlighting the tangible failure modes of cement-based fixing (cracking, debonding, tiles falling, poor aesthetic outcomes).

By August 2026, the objective was articulated once more by CMO Sandeep Tanwani in terms of category penetration specifically, noting that despite rising design consciousness in Indian homes, adhesive penetration remained at 20–25%, and that Roff aimed to build awareness "around the role of the right installation system in ensuring long-term performance" extending the message beyond the adhesive product itself to the complete tile installation system.

Campaign Architecture & Execution

Roff's product education effort has unfolded as a series of distinct, professionally produced campaigns rather than a single continuous initiative, each addressing the awareness gap through comedic, narrative-driven television commercials paired with integrated media rollout.

2019 – Maiden Consumer TVC. Conceptualized by Ogilvy, this campaign depicted common tile failures (cracking, debonding, tiles falling) resulting from cement use, targeted at consumers building or renovating homes. Sharma described television as the lead medium "because we need to create mass awareness about the brand and the solutions it offers," citing its reach and cost-effectiveness, with print as the least-used medium.

2023 – Consumer Awareness Campaign. Announced in June–July 2023 and led by Sudhanshu Vats, this phase again used humor to depict the frustrations of cement-based tile fixing, was conceptualized by Ogilvy, and was explicitly positioned as a nationwide launch. Public brand materials from this period also emphasize Roff's GreenPro Ecolabel certification and sustainability positioning, tying product education to environmental credentials. Pidilite's FY2022–23 Integrated Annual Report separately documents that Roff partnered with the Pro Kabaddi League that year, a sponsorship the company described as reinforcing "the brand's core message of strong bonds and enduring strength in fixing tiles."

2024 – Digital/Influencer Education Push. A case study published by ARM Worldwide, described as Pidilite's digital communication partner, documents the "#MagarKiJakad" campaign, which used influencer collaborations aimed specifically at architects, interior designers, and contractors, intended to raise product awareness and bridge knowledge gaps regarding the full potential of Roff's adhesive range in real-world construction scenarios.

2026 – "Prison" TVC. Unveiled in August 2026, this campaign was again conceptualized by Ogilvy (with creative direction credited to Anurag Agnihotri, CCO West) and produced by Corcoise Films under Prasoon Pandey. The commercial is set inside a prison, contrasting an inmate whose cell tiles repeatedly loosen and fall apart with a jailor whose tiles fixed with Roff endure. According to Ogilvy's creative lead, the intent was to dramatize the stark contrast between traditional and Roff-based fixing outcomes through a single shared physical space. Pidilite described the campaign as targeting homeowners, contractors, architects, and masons simultaneously, and as rolling out across television, digital, and social media.

Underpinning these consumer-facing waves, Pidilite has continued to invest in contractor-level infrastructure: the Roff Champs loyalty program, a dedicated Contractor App, and, as reported in industry press, a fully automated manufacturing facility inaugurated in Sandila in March 2024 to improve product availability and delivery efficiency in Northern India.

Positioning & Consumer Insight

The consistent creative insight underlying Roff's campaigns is that Indian consumers historically evaluate a tile purchase almost entirely on aesthetic criteria pattern, finish, and price while remaining unaware that the fixing method chosen by their contractor materially determines whether that investment lasts. This insight is made explicit in Pidilite's 2026 campaign messaging, articulated by CMO Sandeep Tanwani as: "while the choice of tile defines a space's aesthetic appeal, the right installation solution is what ensures it stands the test of time."

A second, related insight surfaced by Vivek Sharma in 2019 concerns the emotional stakes of the category: home construction represents one of a household's largest financial and emotional investments, which the brand sought to leverage by framing adhesive adoption as a small incremental cost against a much larger and more meaningful investment. This positioning avoids competing on technical specification alone and instead frames the decision in terms of long-term protection of the broader home investment.

Each campaign has used exaggerated, comedic scenarios (a demanding homeowner's rant, a prison cell) rather than direct technical demonstration, a stylistic choice that industry commentators including Aalap Desai of Dentsu Webchutney, quoted in the 2019 afaqs! coverage have linked to Pidilite's broader house style of using humor to communicate otherwise dry technical product benefits, consistent with the tone historically used for Pidilite's Fevicol brand.

Media & Channel Strategy

Publicly available material indicates a consistent, integrated multi-channel structure across campaign phases: television as the anchor medium for mass-reach brand awareness, supplemented by digital and social media, out-of-home advertising (Roff's own website references an OOH execution titled "Nak Kat Gayi"), and in-market retail activations at major tile dealerships timed to coincide with the 2019 TVC launch. The 2023 and 2026 waves were both explicitly described by the company as nationwide, integrated rollouts spanning television, digital, and social platforms.

Beyond paid media, Roff has maintained a parallel contractor-facing channel structure separate from its consumer campaigns, including in-person contractor education sessions, training videos, the Roff Champs loyalty program, and a dedicated Contractor App, reflecting the two-audience nature of the purchase decision (the consumer who selects tiles, and the contractor/mason who selects the fixing method). Sponsorship of the Pro Kabaddi League in FY2022–23, as disclosed in Pidilite's Integrated Annual Report, represents a further brand-building channel oriented toward mass reach rather than direct product education.

Business & Brand Outcomes

Pidilite has not publicly disclosed campaign-specific metrics such as sales uplift, market share change, awareness scores, or return on marketing investment directly attributable to any individual Roff campaign. No verified public information is available on the cost, reach figures, or measured awareness impact of the 2019, 2023, 2024, or 2026 campaigns specifically.

What is publicly documented is company- and category-level performance context around the same period. In its Q1 FY2027 earnings call (covering the quarter ended June 2026), Pidilite management stated that tile adhesive penetration in India remained at approximately 25–30%, and that the Roff brand, alongside Dr. Fixit waterproofing and project-led businesses, was showing "momentum," within a quarter in which the company reported standalone revenue growth of 22.2% year-on-year and underlying volume growth of 11.3%. An earlier equity research note (Nuvama, September 2025) similarly characterized tile adhesives as "a high-growth story due to low penetration and a comprehensive portfolio," citing management confidence in continued double-digit volume growth for the category. These statements describe overall business and category trends rather than campaign-attributable outcomes, and should not be read as validated proof of individual campaign effectiveness.

Separately, capacity investment provides an indirect signal of category confidence: the March 2024 commissioning of a new automated manufacturing facility for Roff in Sandila indicates continued capital commitment to the tile adhesive business during the same period as the education-led marketing campaigns.

Strategic Implications

The Roff case illustrates a recurring strategic pattern in Pidilite's broader brand portfolio (most visibly demonstrated historically by Fevicol): using sustained, humor-led mass communication to build category awareness in a market where the incumbent solution (cement) is not a branded competitor but an entrenched behavioral default. Because the actual application decision is frequently delegated to a contractor rather than made directly by the paying consumer, Roff's campaigns have needed to operate on two audiences simultaneously building enough consumer-level awareness to prompt a conversation at the point of sale, while separately maintaining contractor-level education, incentive, and loyalty infrastructure to address the economic disincentive (adhesive cost roughly double that of cement, as per the MOFSL research note) that contractors face in recommending the category.

The repetition of the "category creation" objective across campaigns launched in 2019, 2023, and 2026 each still citing the same 20–30% penetration range suggests that category conversion in this segment is a long-horizon undertaking rather than one resolved within a single campaign cycle, a pattern common to categories where the desired shift is behavioral (changing a construction-trade practice) rather than purely a brand-preference decision within an already-adopted category.

Discussion Questions

1. Roff's campaigns are designed to influence homeowners even though the actual tile-fixing decision is typically made by contractors and masons. What are the strategic advantages and risks of directing mass media spend at an audience that does not directly execute the purchase decision?

   
   

2. The Motilal Oswal research note identifies contractor economics (adhesive cost roughly double that of cement) as a structural barrier to category adoption. To what extent can consumer-facing advertising alone overcome a barrier that is fundamentally economic and located at a different point in the value chain?

   
   

3. Compare Roff's approach of "competing against a behavior" (cement) rather than a branded competitor to other category-creation efforts you are familiar with. What communication strategies are uniquely suited to displacing an entrenched practice rather than a rival brand?

   
   

4. Pidilite has repeated its category-creation messaging across at least three distinct campaign waves (2019, 2023, 2026) without publicly disclosed evidence of penetration having moved beyond the 20–30% range cited in each period. What frameworks would you use to determine whether continued investment in this messaging strategy is justified, given the available public information?

   
   

5. Roff has pursued parallel tracks mass consumer television campaigns and dedicated contractor loyalty/education infrastructure (Roff Champs, Contractor App). How should a company sequence or balance investment between a two-sided market's decision-maker and its decision-influencer when both suffer from low awareness?