Cycle Agarbattis: The brand which brought premium-ness to Incense sticks

How the brand was built – part 1

Synopsis

This is a brief story of the brand that saw its humble beginnings in 1948, and its tumultuous journey to become an INR 1000 crores brand today. With a well-established distribution network across India and overseas, Cycle Agarbattis brand products are easily accessible products to people, and it’s a phenomenal accomplishment. This story is narrated in 3 parts, part 1 talks more about origins.

Introduction

What is olfactory got to do with our lives? – everything.  Our moods and their swings have a direct connection to the olfactory. 

If there is a fragrance for uplifting our mood toward divinity, the aromas of food can salivate and induce hunger in us. Similarly, when smelled, some perfumes can make us feel romantic. Likewise, some other scents can make us feel fresh and hygienic when sprayed on the body. 

Our ancestors knew about it and used incense sticks for various occasions. The fragrances used on the incense sticks were distilled using flowers, herbs, shrubs, nuts, and fruits. 

Birth of Cycle brand of Agarbattis in Mysuru

The Agarbatti industry was mostly small family-owned firms and the agarbattis were widely used across India in the 1940s during poojas and other holy rituals. The late N Ranga Rao spotted an opportunity to tap. He started creating fragrances that are used in the making of Agarbattis. He used to travel across Mysuru city on cycle for selling his wares to various manufacturers. Within a year he realized that to be successful in this business he needed three key things – A differentiated product, a brand, and access to the market. That was how “Cycle Agarbattis” was born in the Royal city of Mysuru. 

Birth of Perfumery

For the sake of simplicity and acceptability across regions, “cycle” was kept as the brand logo. “Products with a difference” means he had to be creative and innovative in his products. This necessitated the creation of new fragrances and for that, Ranga Rao immediately set up a perfumery lab in Mysuru in the year 1950. And because he was a voracious reader, he got a lot of international books and trained himself to be a perfumer. Later his son, NR Murthy joined the bandwagon and got officially trained to be a perfumer.  He created several unique fragrances that gave a big boost to the Cycle Agarbattis brand. 

A brand with 500 unique fragrances

The Cycle Agarbattis brand has a collection of over 500 fragrances, all of which are created and blended in-house. Over the last 75 years, the brand reached the numero-uno position in India due to strict adherence to quality and aggressive marketing strategies. 

Agarbattis, have been deeply rooted in Indian culture for millennia. They are an integral part of various religious rituals, meditations, and spiritual practices. The soothing scent emanating from an agarbatti stick is believed to purify the ambiance, inducing a sense of tranquillity and divinity.

Cycle Agarbattis brand is best for poojas

Cycle Agarbattis Brand offers the best product at a premium for poojas and other religious ceremonies. It was an instant click because, most people would want to offer the best for their Gods, so a slight price premium was acceptable to them. 

The marketing team relentlessly set the narrative that when it came to religious offerings, Cycle brand agarbattis are the best, and it was wholeheartedly lapped up by the customers.

The Cycle Agarbattis Product Range

Cycle Agarbattis Brand boasts a wide range of fragrances, catering to the diverse preferences consumer base. The brand offers more than 20 unique collections of incense sticks that include the following 

• Popular Heritage, 
• Woods, Three in One, 
• Lia, 
• Good Luck range. 

Each of these collections has a unique set of fragrances and packaging, catering to various moods and occasions.

For example, their Heritage collection represents traditional Indian fragrances, crafted with ingredients like sandalwood, rose, and jasmine. The Woods range has a collection of earthy scents that echo the grandeur of nature. The brand’s offerings go beyond traditional agarbattis as they have diversified into other fragrant products like Dhoop, Fragrance, and Speciality Fragrances.

Conclusion

The founder N Ranga Rao strongly believed in touching the peoples’ emotions through light, sweet-smelling, soul-uplifting agarbattis for religious offerings. 

In a way, he was trying to bring thoughts of divinity through his products. The man had set high goals for himself and sold his dream to his sons. He brought them to his turf, thus making them work shoulder-to-shoulder with him. While working as a team, he and his sons went through good and bad times together and eventually turned a small agarbatti startup into a multi-product, multi-national conglomerate. 

The company sold 12 billion agarbattis in 2020 by clocking a turnover of Rs. 1000 Crores.

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