Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Ceasefire: RIP 1989-2002

Brand : Ceasefire
Company: Real Value Appliances
Agency: Grey

Brand Count : 114


Ceasefire was India's first domestic fire extinguisher. It was one of India's best and worst marketing stories. A brand that virtually created and ruled a category faded out after12 years.

Fire extinguishers comes in the category of unsought goods and it is difficult and expensive to create and survive in such a product category . Real Value Appliances owned by Mr. Pheroze Engineer started operations in 1989 bringing to the country a new concept - a domestic fire extinguisher. The fire extinguishers were not uncommon to Indian consumers. We see it in large malls and theaters. But a domestic one was unique. Indian consumers never thought of having one in their homes.

The product made perfect sense in Indian market ( infact every market). Our households deal with fire all the time and the risk of fire being getting out of control is very much there. Hence a marketing mind would easily see the prospect of cashing in that need : the need for protection from fire. Thus came in to market Ceasefire. The product was compact, unique had a catchy name, looked good and boasted of extinguishing all sorts of fires.

Ceasefire was halon 1211 based fire extinguisher that was very compact and was handy and easy to use ( with minimum effort). Much more than the efficacy of the use, it gave a certain peace of mind to the Indian consumer against the possible fire mishap.
The product was well received in the market. The ads were focusing on building in the consumer a fear about a possible fire mishap . The ads were backed by a sales campaign. The company focused on direct marketing for promoting the product . Since the " Fear of Fire" is so basic to human psyche, the success was imminent. The product was priced at a premium and the customers never complained.
Fire extinguishers , like Insurance is one kind of product where customers are not unhappy if it is not being used. Hence the success is in keeping the " Fear " alive in the customer's mind. The success of Ceasefire was much discussed in Management classes those days.
Then buoyed by the success, the company diversified to Vaccumizer and " rest became history". From a brand that was among the top ten fastest growing brand in the country to a company referred to BIFR, things moved very fast from 1997 onwards.
It happened not because the brand failed the company but it was because the company failed the brand. The unsuccessful new product like vaccumizer and the alleged mismanagement failed the brand once gloried as a marketing success story.In 2002, Real Value Appliances closed down
its operations. May be the brand / company tried to grow very fast without consolidating, may be because of mismanagement.
It was a brand that lost its life because of faults not of its own. But surprisingly, no other brands have come forward to take that position. The product category that was created by Ceasefire is still void. May be the category may not be appealing to the other marketers. But the potential is there and the fear is also there.
Source: magindia, indiainfoline, estrategicmarketing.com

7 comments:

  1. I think one more point on which Real Value Appliances may have lost out on is the poor maintenance service to the fire extinguishers sold in the market. And since it is a one-time investment made by the customer, just the presence of an extinguisher made them feel safe, which meant lack of touch with your customers for a product that definately had potential for it.

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  2. Anonymous10:04 PM

    the fire that 'Ceasefire' created in market was extinguished by bad decisions by its own managers. What comes to me as a surprise is the fact that, if it looks so simple in the hindsight, why wasn't this visible then? What reality checks can a company miss to embrace such a fate.

    http://bubblescomic.wordpress.com

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  3. Anonymous4:14 PM

    Fire extinguisher is like a insurance without guaranteed return. RIP was known if company was focusing on retail household costumer.

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  4. The company Real Value closed down,but Cease Fire is now sold through Cease Fire Ltd & is still the no 1 in India, its marketing is still the best.
    Real Value was associated with the vaccumiser & smoke detectors which didnt work in india.

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  5. WILL THIS BE EVER LISTED...AND IF I WANT TO BUY THE SHARES OF REAL VALUE APPLIANCES..THEN WHATS THE PROCEDURE

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  6. Harish Sir, Ceasefire is Still Alive and it's the market leader in India. I say this because I worked for Ceasefire few months back. It is the same Real Value that has majority stake in Ceasefire Ltd. I request you to give a correction statement in the blog. Thanks.

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  7. Twinkle sebastian12:02 PM

    The company has exited from Real value brand and now its operating under brand Ceasefire Industries Ltd. After the said fall the present management is very pessimistic in proactive decision making. Still I would say they field a decent revenue from corporate segment. Four years back they have diversified into sprinklers along with the fire extinguisher and smoke detector range.The brand is going to be a sure shot success of the decade with its quality maintained.

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