Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Brand Update : Amul Macho Repositions with Saif Ali Khan

In a significant move, Amul Macho brand has repositioned itself. This season, the brand shed its raunchy image and moved into the ordinary . The brand also roped in Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan as the brand ambassador. Amul Macho is currently running the campaign with the new brand ambassador.

Watch the ad here : Amul Macho
In the current repositioning exercise, the brand dropped the earlier theme of " sexy " and moved into a theme that talks about brand personality. Along with the repositioning, Amul Macho also changed its tagline " Ye To Bada Toing hain " to " Bede Aaram se ".

According to news reports the brand wants to be perceived as cool and more sophisticated. The earlier campaign projected the brand as raw sexy one and now the brand logically wants to be more urban/upmarket while appealing to the mass market.

The new tagline implies that the brand user is one who get things done effortlessly. The ad tries desperately to convey the message of effortlessness rather unsuccessfully. The concept of effortlessness is highly attractive to men but in this case the brand failed to convey the promise effectively to the audience. The tagline " Bede Aaram Se " talks about comfort as well as effortlessness but how ever the poor execution of the positioning concept made the tagline look very old and familiar.

Amul Macho is one of the fastest growing innerwear brand in India. The brand currently has a turnover of over Rs 355 crore.

While the earlier campaigns ( although of poor taste and raunchy) helped Amul Macho to break the clutter. But the current one places the brand right inside the crowd of other innerwear brands . Brands like Lux, Rupa etc also uses celebrity endorsers and with the current repostioning, Amul Macho made itself undifferentiated with the rest of the crowd.

Very few brands were able to successfully integrate itself the concept of effortlessness . Although everyone likes the concept it is very difficult for a brand to project that as a brand promise in a convincing manner. It will take a real big idea to really drive that promise into the consumer's mind. Amul Macho may have to try little more harder to reach that place.

Related Post

Monday, October 25, 2010

Brand Update : Horlicks Becomes A Megabrand !

This had to happen.

Horlicks officially has become a mega-brand. Mega-brands are those brands which have their presence across various product-lines and categories. There will be a wide range of products under the same brand name across multiple product categories.

GSK has recently launched the first integrated brand campaign for Horlicks which positions the brand as a Mega-brand endorsing products across categories like beverages, biscuits , snack bars,etc


This is the first time that the brand brings all the various extensions under the same campaign. Horlicks as the umbrella brand retains the classic tagline " The Great Family Nourisher ".

Along with the new campaign, the brand also has redesigned the critical brand elements like the Logo and the Packaging. The brand had made some changes with regard to the logo color and made the logo + color scheme standard across all extensions. The brand also made the packaging standard for all its beverages viz Horlicks Lite, Women's Horlicks , standard Horlicks etc.

The official acknowledgement of Horlicks as a mega-brand in a way clears the ambiguity regarding the future of the Horlicks brand. In recent blog posts, I had criticized the brand for their aggressive brand extensions. In this one move, Horlicks has given an answer to the critic in me . Horlicks is no longer a health-drink brand. It is a mega-brand which has interest in foods,beverages, snack-bars and all the future opportunities that arise in the market ( whether you like it or not).

This move thus gives lot of clarity to the brand managers. The brand has boldly made a decision whether it is right or wrong. The brand can aggressively pursue any opportunity in the market because that is what is implied in this strategic move of making Horlicks -a mega brand.

Horlicks is now a Rs 1500 crore brand. The brand is having around 52% share in the health food drinks category ( which is estimated to be Rs 2000 crore). The brand also has presence in biscuits ( total market size - Rs 11000 crore) and in snack-bar ( total mkt size -Rs 250 cr0re).

With the new brand architecture , Horlicks is looking at a larger market which comprises of all kinds of health foods and packaged/branded beverages which is having a total market size of over Rs 100,000 crore ( Source : Campaign India). So one should be prepared to see the launch of products like Horlicks Icecreams, Horlicks Oats etc in future.

On the brighter side, the repositioning of Horlicks as a mega-brand will rationalize the marketing cost for GSK. Although there will be individual brand communications for categories, the brand can now put more money on pushing the core brand which will inturn help all products under the umbrella.

But as major critics of such branding like Alries would point out, Horlicks has now lost its identity. Now consumers will find it difficult to assign a unique position for Horlicks. This dilution can be an opportunity for specialized products which can threaten the strongholds of Horlicks which is the health-food-drink. A focused health food drink brand can now challenge Horlicks's position but the fact is that there is none so far. Complan too has launched products outside the HFD category.

As a keen observer of marketing I feel that the move of making Horlicks is the biggest risk taken by this brand. The brand has moved into the current architecture when competition has become tough in the health-drink category. It will be worthwhile to watch the future of this mega-brand.

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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Marketing Strategy : Celebrating the WoW Moments

Seldom does brands hit upon wonderful ideas that capture the attention of the consumers. During the last IPL season, Vodafone hit upon such a wonderful advertising idea – The ZooZoo. Those white cute characters quickly captured the imagination of India. ZooZoos were all around the media with rave reviews, blogs and viral videos. The entire marketing community was watching how the brand will handle the unprecedented success of the ZooZoos.

Vodafone themselves was surprised at the success of ZooZoo and it took a while for the company to wake up to the idea of capitalizing the success of ZooZoo by launching merchandises, games, contests and social media engagement. To take the popularity to ZooZoo to the next level, the brand also launched a campaign asking the public to contribute to the advertising campaigns by suggesting ideas.

It is important for the brands to capitalize every such wow factors to the maximum. The big ideas can come in the form of a tagline, a celebrity, a brand mascot, a product feature or an advertising idea. Once that big idea becomes highly accepted by the consumers, it is important for the brand to take it to the next level of engagement.

Take the example of the MRF‘s association with Sachin Tendulkar and cricket. The association started off as a brand endorsement. MRF’s logo on Sachin’s bat got the brand so much visibility that cricket fans began to ask for MRF bats at sports shops. MRF later launched its cricket kits to cash on the popularity. To celebrate the brand’s association with cricket, MRF also ventured into launching MRF pace foundation which has become a vital talent school for pace bowlers. All these engagements involved investments that could not be recovered on a short-term. MRF also involved seriously into racing sports which had a direct connection with the brand’s offering. MRF began to celebrate its involvement in rallies thereby reinforcing the brand’s credibility as a modern, tough tire brand. In all these activities, the brand involved 100% and the investments was not blinded by a quest for short-term sales spurts.

It was a wow- moment for Nike when it chose the tagline “Just Do It”. Customers loved the tagline and Nike did not waste a moment in celebrating the tagline. The tagline became an integral factor in the success of Nike brand. In the Indian context, Idea Cellular Ltd hit upon a hit tagline “ An Idea can Change Your Life ”. The brand also signed up Abhishek Bachchan as the brand ambassador. The brand celebrated these two big ideas together with huge success.

Marketers should look for signs of success of their big and small ideas. There is a huge potential for celebration when consumers start talking about those WoW moments. When consumer starts talking about the brand, marketers should take the cue and take the engagement to the next level.

Have a plan to celebrate.

In this highly competitive world, time is a precious resource. The brand should celebrate its ideas before the euphoria dies down. More time the marketer spent contemplating on the planning phase, the less effective the engagement. There has to be a plan to systematically enhance the engagement with the consumers in the event of such a wow-moment.

Celebrating the brand’s wow moments can have lot of positive rub-offs. It can create an engagement with the consumers. Take the case of ZooZoo. These characters created lot of engagement with the brand and the public (consumers and non-consumers of Vodafone). The ZooZoo fan page in Facebook has more than 3.30 lakh fans. Through these, the brand is able to connect with a larger base of existing and potential consumers who hold a positive frame of mind towards the brand or its campaigns.

Use all the marketing opportunities.

We are living in a highly networked world that offers many opportunities to engage with the consumers. Indian marketers are slow in adapting to newer ways of connecting to the consumers. Once Vodafone figured out the celebrating ZooZoo, it went on an overdrive using all the media opportunities. Vodafone is now using social media like Facebook, Orkut etc to create more engagement with the consumers. It also sells ZooZoo merchandise through select outlets. There are also contests and games which consumers can play in the social media that created lot of consumer engagement.

Celebration is an investment.

In an era of spreadsheets,ROIs and quarterly reports it is difficult for marketers to quickly quantify the returns for such a celebration. Hence it would be prudent for marketers should consider such marketing activities as a long-term investment. Although there may not be an immediate spike in the sales, one should be able to see the long-term equity that such a celebration can deliver to the brand.

Link the celebration to the brand.

While there are a lot of advantages in celebrating the wow- moments, marketers should have clarity in linking the celebration to the brand’s big picture. Brand needs to benefit from the celebration either in terms of better visibility, market share, loyalty or engagement with the consumers. Periodic reviews and assessment will help marketers to justify further investments in celebrating brand’s small and big successes.

Originally Published here in Adclubbombay.com

Monday, October 18, 2010

Brand Update : Peter England is the Beginning of Good Things

It has been almost four years since I updated about this brand. Peter England has always been my favorite brand and it remains so even after all these years. But somehow I missed to update about this wonderful brand for such a long time.

In these four years, Peter England has become a Rs 500 crore brand growing more than 30% annually. In the last IPL season, Peter England hit the branding circuit with a bang by sponsoring Chennai Super Kings. The brand also dabbed into suits as well as casual wear in this time. At one point in time, the brand had a campaign featuring Kareeena Kapoor.

2010 is witnessing another beginning for the brand. The brand has roped in the South Indian Actor Siddharth as brand ambassador and is currently running a campaign featuring the celebrity. Along with the brand ambassador, Peter England is also repositioning itself on a new platform. The brand has changed its tagline to " Beginning of Good Things ".

Watch the new campaign here : Peter England

In their press releases, the brand talks about the new positioning. Peter England wants to epitomize confidence that arises out of self belief. The brand wants to remind the users about their inner strength that will arise of self-confidence and Peter England will be the source of that self confidence.

Although the brand's new proposition sounds good and is a sort of laddering up, I surely miss the first campaign of Peter England - The Honest Shirt . That was a campaign that expressed the brand completely. The promise of a Honest Shirt was embraced by consumers because the message was so simple , direct and relevant.

But how ever, the brand got bored with the positioning and moved over to an aspirational " Honestly Impressive " theme. Although the concept was good, it was no where near the original one interms of relevance and simplicity.

To be frank, I did not like the new tagline -Beginning of Good Things ( personal opinion !) . The positioning almost is similar to Cadbury Dairy Milk's Shubh Aarambh theme ( for an auspicious beginning). And theme of self confidence arising out of dress is neither new nor clutter breaking. Its just another campaign and the brand will see its sales going northward because of the smart selection of the celebrity.

Siddharth will make the brand more appealing to youngsters. The flooding of the market by various regional brands/private labels and the trend among youngsters to go for street fashion rather than branded ones is making the lives of brands like Peter England difficult . The popularity of Siddharth among youngsters will bring back lot of them to the brand.

Peter England as a brand will make sense because of the inherent value proposition. As long as the value proposition remains the same, there is no stopping for this brand.

Related Post

Friday, October 15, 2010

Brand Update : Idea Wants To Break Language Barrier

Idea Cellular has hit upon another smart idea this season with the latest " language barrier " ad. Sirji now wants to break the language barrier using mobile phones.

Taking the concept of " An idea can change your life " , Idea cellular has been relentlessly pursuing new ideas in their campaigns. Whether those ideas have any relevance to the brand or not, campaigns were run with passion. This persistence has paid off for the brand interms of brand recognition and also interms of market share.

This time the brand talks about how the mobile telephony can the solve the issue of language barrier in a diverse country like India. A country with 28 recognized languages and 22000 dialects, language has been a big problem for those people who needs constant relocation.
As a follow-up to the campaign , Idea launched a language helpline across the circles it operates for the general public. Through the helpline, the caller can get the help of a translator . The user should give the message to be translated in English and the helpline agent will translate the message in the language required by the caller. The helpline is open to non- Idea subscribers also.

One of the key lessons from the brand is the power of passion. The brand owners are passionate about the brand's positioning and it invests heavily in the campaigns bombarding the consumers with passionate messages. This passion has made " What an Idea Sirji " line a part of the common lingo of youngsters.
The ad campaign has been well received by the viewers and it needs to be seen whether the actual service will be used by the consumers. Whether it is used or not, Idea should be congratulated on the consistency and the passion in which it approach the core brand positioning.

Related post

Monday, October 11, 2010

Vivanta By Taj : Discover

Brand : Vivanta
Company : Indian Hotels Company Ltd ( IHCL)
Ad Agency : Rediffusion Y&R


Brand Analysis Count : 464


Vivanta is the new brand from Indian Hotels Company Ltd ( aka Taj Hotels & Resorts) launched as a result of a brand restructuring exercise. The new brand Vivanta will replace the Taj Residency brand and will represent IHCL's presence in the Upper Upscale segment of Indian hotel/hospitality market.Vivanta was initially launched in 2008 when IHCL rebranded three Taj Residency properties to Vivanta. IHCL tested and tweaked the brand for two years before the national roll out in 2010. Now around 19 Taj properties has been rebranded to Vivanta.

The rebranding of Taj Residency to Vivanta is a part of the Tata group to move from a " Branded House " to " House of Brands " brand portfolio structure. The move towards a basket of brands started with the launch of Ginger brand of hotels for the domestic budget business traveler. The Ginger brand launch was followed by the launch of The Gateway Hotels brand which saw many Taj properties being rebranded to " The Gateway Hotels ". Now the launch of Vivanta completes one phase of the very important brand restructuring exercise.

Now IHCL has the following brands in the Indian hotel segment :
Taj brand -- Targeting the most luxurious segment. The brand will have properties on the best locales and attract the most premium customers.

Vivanta : Will be 10-15 % cheaper than Taj Hotels and target the upper upscale segment of the market. The brand will have presence on major cities and tourist destinations and will attract the affluent customers.

The Gateway Hotels - Will be 10-15% cheaper than Vivanta and will target the upscale segment and the business travelers. This brand will be located in most cities which are frequented by business and leisure travelers and will attract young professionals.

Ginger : Will be the lowest priced hotels targeting the frequently traveling businessmen. The brand has successfully tapped the need for a chain of quality hotels which targets the travelers with limited budget.

The important question is regarding the rationale for such a brand portfolio decision. Isn't it better to have a branded house portfolio where all hotels will have the Taj brand ?

The move is very relevant for IHCL because this restructuring will prevent dilution of Taj brand which is perceived to be a premium luxury brand. The use of Taj brand for all hotel properties of IHCL made sense in all these years because the market was not highly segmented.

Now Indian hotel/hospitality market has matured and is witnessing lot of interest from domestic and international players. The who is who of hospitality industry is already in the Indian market and a lot is waiting to enter. It is in this context that IHCL had to relook the brand portfolio decisions. The consumers also have evolved and different class of consumers has evolved in recent years.

Since Taj was used to endorse all properties of IHCL, there is always a chance of different types of properties carrying the Taj brand. So in a city there will be two type of property - one luxurious and another upper scale carrying the same brand name. This can create problems interms of brand positioning. If IHCL needs to position Taj as a luxurious brand, it needs to have a consistency in terms of the physical evidence ( hotel properties ) and the core product ( service). This consistency cannot be possible when there are inconsistencies in terms of size of hotel properties and the level of service in those hotels.

Another issue with Branded House is that the firm will be constrained by the values /positioning of the core brand.Hence IHCL may not be able to tap into opportunities other than luxury hotels if they follow branded house strategy. The launch of Ginger in the budget segment is an effort by the company to move into tapping other opportunities presented by the market.

Now with the introduction of two brands - The Gateway Hotels and Vivanta, IHCL is now able to arrange the properties in accordance with the respective brand's positioning. Taj will now be an exclusive brand associating only with best properties and service promises. The other three brands will enable IHCL to tap into the opportunities of the market without being constrained by Taj 's brand positioning.

The next issue is whether the new brands will be able to retain the equity of Taj. According to press reports, IHCL was able to establish " The Gateway Hotels " as a credible brand. Ofcourse it cannot match the equity of Taj but the heritage and the loyal customers will see the brand through this transition period. The advantage is that IHCL can give a separate identity to these brands.

Vivanta is positioned as a young brand. The brand is targeting the new breed of young affluents. The service architecture also reflects the focus on the young rich traveler. According to the recent report in Business Standard, the brand has identified critical touch points where it could differentiate itself from other brands.To help the brand establish itself, Vivanta is currently endorsed by Taj brand. In the marketing communications, the branding is done as " Vivanta by Taj ". This endorsement will continue till Vivanta establish itself as an independent brand.

Vivanta brand name is inspired by the term Bon Vivant . The typical consumer profile for Vivanta is one who is sophisticated and have appreciation for good things in life.
Vivanta is currently running a print campaign announcing the launch. The ad positions the new brand promise and the youthful look for the brand. See it here.

Consumers will definitely miss the Taj brand. The status and the feeling of pride when staying in Taj brand of hotels is now restricted to a select few.

In the long - term perspective, the move of IHCL has done the right thing. The brands need to be nurtured and it will be the service promise and delivery that will help these new brands to establish themselves as worthy successors of Taj.

Related brand

Friday, October 08, 2010

Announcement : Rajagiri National Business Quiz

Rajagiri Center for Business Studies ( where I teach) is organizing a National Business Quiz Competition for Management Students and Corporates. The quiz is being conducted as a part of Inflore- the management festival organized by the management students of RCBS.

The National Business Quiz will be held on 29th and 30th October 2010 at the Valley Campus , Rajagiri Valley ,Kochi, Kerala.

The winning team of the quiz will walk away with a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and runner up team will be awarded Rs 50,000.

Interested students and corporate quizzers can register here

More details, rules and regulations about the quiz can be accessed here.

So if you are a quiz enthusiast, be here to compete with the best quizzers from around the country.

Marketing Strategy : The World of Experiential Marketing

Marketers are now faced with intense competition at one hand and a media clutter on the other hand. These issues are going to aggravate in the years to come. Differentiation will become difficult and if at all brands can create differentiation, communicating the uniqueness will become even more difficult.

It is in this scenario that experiential marketing becomes relevant. According to Professor Kevin Lane Keller, Experiential marketing promotes product by not only communicating a product’s features and benefits but also connecting it with unique and interesting experiences.

Traditionally, experiential marketing was appealing to those products and services that have high experience attributes. Experience attributes are those attributes which cannot be evaluated by consumers before purchase. Consumers have to experience those attributes inorder to evaluate or form opinion about it. For example, resorts, holiday packages, Spas etc are products that have high experience attributes. Marketers have to market those products/services by taking the customer through the product experience. Communicating experience attributes is one of the most difficult tasks in marketing communication.

As the consumers are moving towards an experience eco-system, marketers of all kinds of products and services should be willing to embrace the concept of experiential marketing. There are many forces that are driving this experience economy. Consumers are now exposed to a wide range of products and services. This exposure has enabled them to see beyond the marketing communication originated from the brand.

Another factor that is driving the trend towards experience is the clutter. When the product features remains the same, consumers tend to bias their purchase decisions towards those products that offer them a better experience.

Experience can happen at different levels. According to Bernd Schmitt of Columbia University, how the brands sense, feel, think, act and relate have a strong impact on the way the brands are perceived by the consumers (Journal of Marketing Management, 1999). Marketers can think about engaging with the consumers only if they are able to connect with the consumers across these five critical experience points.

In order to create an effective customer experience, marketers need to think beyond product categories. Categories are increasingly becoming irrelevant as far as consumers are concerned. Technological innovations are enabling firms to create products that transcends beyond boundaries. The focus is on the consumer’s needs and wants rather than creating a new product within a specified category.

Most of the product marketers are confused about building an experience around the physical product. How is it possible to create an experience when the consumers purchase products from retail outlets and consumes it at their own convenience?

In such a scenario, one method is to create a consumption experience in the mind of the consumer that will compliment the real consumption experience. For example, Cadbury Dairy Milk is a brand which successfully created a consumption experience in the mind of the consumer. From the product – chocolate, the brand has moved from the physical characteristics of taste and quality to a joyful experience of consuming chocolate. The recent campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk is a classic case of creating experience in the mind of the consumer.

Another method is the engage the consumers in different platforms. HUL which is India’s largest FMCG Company recently launched a website called Be Beautiful (bebeautiful.in) as a platform to communicate with its consumers. “Be Beautiful”, unlike other brand website , is a platform for all of HUL’s personal care brands like Pond’s, Lakme, Sunsilk, Vaseline and Dove to connect with the consumer. While the consumer experiences the actual products at her home, these brands try to engage consumers and shape their experience with the brand through the website. The website offers a platform for the brand to interact directly with the consumers thus create an opportunity for experiential marketing.

While marketers think too much about using the social media for advertising and promoting their products, they miss out the opportunity to engage with the consumers and create an experience in them about the brand.

Events are also a smart way of creating brand experience and to relate to the customer. Brands like Colgate uses events like “Dental Check Up Camps” to relate to the consumer. These events not only reinforce the positioning but also give a sense of relatedness to the consumers.

The cornerstone of experiential marketing is that the entire organization should be integrated to deliver the desired experience of the consumer. Philip Kotler defines Holistic Marketing as that which is based on the development design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities that recognizes their breadth and interdependencies. When endeavouring into experiential marketing, the entire organization should be thinking alike, be it the operations, sales, finance or HR. Brand websites which are seldom updated, complaints not attended to properly, rude sales people, unethical corporate practices can severely undermine the experiential marketing endeavour.

Originally published here in Adclubbombay.com

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Brand Update : Garnier Goes Beyond Shampoos

A lot of activities are happening for Garnier brand in the Indian market. From a brand focused on shampoo, Garnier has moved into personal care category with a range of products from fairness creams to deodorants.

Garnier earlier had moved to a broader personal care market with a wide range of personal care products for women. Later the brand broke into men's personal care with the launch of Garnier men's fairness creams endorsed by Bollywood hunk John Abraham.The brand also launched Garnier range of deodorants endorsed by the same celebrity.

Now,Garnier is all set to cover the entire shampoo market with the launch of Garnier Kids Shampoo in the Indian market. It is interesting to see how this brand is slowly covering the entire Indian personal care market. The brand is adopting a segment by segment targeting strategy. It consolidated its position in shampoo then moved into men's personal care and now into kid's hair care market.

The launch of Garnier Fructis kid's shampoo is expected to revive the kid's personal care category in India. The kid's hair care market is dominated by HUL's Clinic Plus brand and the other players being Parachute Starz. But recently the activities in this category has been minimal.

The entry of Garnier into the kid's segment may have been to catch them young.The new generation kids have a mind of their own and they are brand conscious. So tapping them with a variant makes sense. Moreover mothers feel that young hair /skin needs special care and adults products may be too strong for the kids.

Garnier's brand strategy of slow systematic growth has been reaping rich rewards. The brand has gained consumer acceptance and retail support across various markets in India.The brand is careful in using the same imagery across various categories. The brand uses a mix of foreign and Indian models for its campaigns and is never fixated on depending on a celebrity face to push the product. The brand although started as a shampoo brand has flexibility to move into various categories. The core brand values of " Green " and the tagline " Take Care " can be used across multiple categories without any dilution to the core brand positioning.

Garnier is wise enough to make maximum advantage of those attributes.

Related Brand

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Cif : Lets You Shine

Brand : Cif
Company : HUL

Brand Analysis Count : 463


Cif is India's first cream based surface cleaner. The brand which was launched in India on June 2009 is World's largest selling domestic cream based surface cleaner. This 50 year old global brand is estimated to be worth 500 Million Euros.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd has been launching a wide range of products from its global portfolio into the Indian market. The launch of Cif also is a testimony to the fact that Indian market has matured enough for such specialty products.

Cif is a cream based surface cleaner. Indian household cleaning care category is worth around Rs 1240 crore. The market is divided as follows :
Utinsils - Rs 950 crores
Toilet cleaners - Rs 180 crore
Floor cleaners - Rs 75 crore
Surface cleaners -Rs 35 crore.

Cif is fighting for share in the surface cleaner market. Surface cleaner category is a niche. This category has emerged because of the changing consumer needs. Cif is a surface cleaner to tackle tough stains. If you look at Indian market four years back, there were no brand which was positioned as a surface cleaner. The consumers also was not keen on adding another product to their consumption basket. The emergence of such a product is the result of the increased care and attention given by consumers towards their kitchen. Now kitchen is not only a place to cook but also a place to make an impression.Kitchens have become a reflection of lifestyle in the new urban households. Hence households are now open to the idea of spending more for products that can sparkle rather than clean. It is in this perspective that Cif found Indian market attractive.

Cif is not alone in this category. The brand is facing competition from other global players like Easy Off Bang from Reckitt & Benckiser and Mr Muscle from SC Johnson.

Cif initially adopted the easy way of importing foreign commercial to the Indian market for launching campaign. The ads showed a busy chef using Cif for removing tough stains. Now the brand has launched a ' made for India ' campaign featuring the famous Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor.

The brand is positioned as a cleaner that cares while cleans tough stains. The key differentiator for the brand is its creamy form and its stain removing capability. Now the brand is only talking about its use in the kitchen . Its competitors like Easy Off Bang and Mr Muscle has been promoting multiple utility .

The launch of products like Cif and Easy Off Bang has fragmented the surface cleaner market into various sub-segments. The task for these brands is to nurture the niche further. The key is to make encourage repeat purchases for the products.