Cuticura: Leaving You Speechless

Brand : Cuticura
Company: Cholayil
Agency:Rediffusion

Brand Count:135

Cuticura is an International brand which has a history of 200years. Once synonymous with talcum powder, this brand was pushed to oblivion because of marketing myopia or marketing laziness.
Cutucura came to India 80 years back.Cutucura was owned in India by Muller&Phipps. Globally this brand was owned by Keyline Brands which was acquired by Godrej Consumer products in 2005. Interestingly the brand is owned in India by Cholayil who are the marketers of Medimix soaps.Cholayil refuses to sell the brand to Godrej. Godrej hence have the rights to the brand outside India. It looks like a typical hindi film story script. Cutucura may be crying " Main kon hu, Main kahan Hu, Mera papa Kaun hai"?

Cholayil acquired the brand from Muller in 2002. The brand was given a make over and the new owners was trying to revive the brand. Cuticura was a leading brand of talcum powders in India in the 80's. Indian talcum powder market is estimated to be around Rs 600 crore. In the late 80's the brand faced competition from HLL and Cuticura was not able to sustain in the market.One major factors was that the Muller underestimated competition. The brand failed to change . Today the talcum poweder market is dominated by HLL's Ponds with 65% share.

Cuticura's stronghold is the southern market where it claims to have a share of 30%. The brand still holds equity in this market. So for Cholayil who markets Medimix, this brand gives a platform to get into personal care business.

Cuticura is known for its fragrance. The classic brand also famous for its orange and white packing which still has a huge recall. Cuticura while retaining its classic product launched a lavender variant in 2003. Reports suggest that the variant failed to make any ripples in the market. But these efforts helped the brand to post a decent turnover thanks to the brand equity. Now this brand is worth Rs 10 crore.

Although the Cholayil group has taken serious steps in reviving the brand, the campaign lacked the punch needed to propel the brand to new heights. The brand still retains the classic positioning based on fragrance. The new tagline talks about the brand leaving you speechless . Although creative idea is OK, the execution is horrible. The hyperbole fails to catch the imagination of new generation.

The biggest challenge that the brand face is that its core users have become old. The customers who liked and used this brand have now become old and the new generation does not know this brand. Hence the brand has to be relevant to the new generation competing with the power brands like Ponds.

2006 saw the brand extending to deodorants. The extension was branded as Cuticura DeO2.The main USP of DeO2 is its ingredient Farnesol. The brand has the tagline " Let your underarms breathe". Although a not thrilling tagline, to some this make sense because this product will help you smell good without inhibiting perspiration which is an important function of the body. Most of the deos inhibits perspiration to control the bad smell.

Unlike the talc ad, the DeO2 campaign is carefully executed to appeal to the newgen. Cuticura DeO2 will be pitted against Rexona, Fa, etc in this segment.

The brand has a potential to be a serious player in the personal care segment. The brand has to exploit its brand equity and strive to be relevant to the new generation who may have forgotten this brand

source: historypages.net, magindia.com, agencyfaqs, cholayil

Secret Temptations : Sorry Boys

Brand : Secret Temptations
Company : McNroe Chemicals
( Marketed by Future Brands)

Agency : Euro Rscg


Brand Analysis Count : 379

After spreading a fire of controversy with the brand Wild Stone, McNroe Chemicals is back with another deodorant brand named " Secret Temptations". The new brand of deo which is targeting the girls is already making noise in the visual media.

Secret Temptations is marketed by Future Brands which is the brand- consultancy division of the Future Group. By associating with India's largest retail company, the brand has already have ensured presence across India. With the backing of this large retail giant, the only thing that Secret Temptations have to concentrate is to build the brand.

According to Exchange4Media website, Secret Temptations is a popular brand in Eastern India. It was in 2009 that the brand have made a national launch.

The launch of a deo targeting the female segment makes sense because there is a potential for a deo brand in this segment. Rexona ,Cuticura, Fa and Spinz are the major players in this category.And none of these players are aggressive in the market interms of brand building and promotions. Rexona is banking on its past glory and other players are silent in the market.

The market is flood with imported brands and I feel that the threat of Indian brands are from these imports rather than the domestic competition.

Secret Temptations is targeting the teens and youngsters. Although the name Secret Temptations can give the brand a sexy connotation, the company has deliberately decided to go decent about this brand compared to the controversies created by WildStone brand.

The launch campaign of Secret Temptations is a good one ,clearly communicating the brand's promise.

Watch the campaign here : Secret Temptations

The idea of guys being " floored" by the fragrance and the girl playing hide & seek gives the brand a sense of 'cool'. The fact that the girl choose not to reveal the identity to the "impressed" guy also makes a point- which will be liked by the target audience. At last there is an ad which breaks the usual pattern .

The brand also has a cool tagline " Sorry Boys" which is inline with the positioning of the brand . While most of the female personal grooming brands are centred around the concept of " impressing guys" theme, it is refreshing to see a brand towing a different path - girls playing " hard to get" .

It will be interesting to see how the market leader Rexona will react to the competition. HUL has been showing some of the foreign ads for Rexona currently rather than developing India-centric campaigns.The leader is complacent and it gives an opportunity for a challenger brand like Secret Temptations to make a place of itself in the Indian market.

According to reports, Secret Temptation is not going to be a pure deo brand but a personal grooming brand for girls.

Related Brand

Wild Stone

Spinz : Fragrances That Transform

Brand : Spinz
Company: CavinKare
Agency: Rubecon

Brand count : 181

Spinz is India's very own brand of perfume. The brand once the market leader had lost out of the race at one point of time is trying to make a comeback in the fiercly competitive Indian market. Spinz was launched in 1997. The brand was an instant hit in the Indian market was strongly associated with fragrance.
Indian perfume market is small with a value size of Rs 65 crore. The market is tough for account of following reasons.
a. The penetration of perfumes in abysmally low at less than 1% even in the urban market. The low penetration accounts for the fact that Perfumes do not figure in the priority list of most of the Indian consumer. Here in India, body odour is not a taboo. People don't feel embarrassed if they smell bad. They don't even bother to check whether they smell bad or not. Although this psyche is slowly changing : thanks to the effort of Deo marketing companies.

b. The astronomical prices of perfumes often discourages the Indian consumers to indulge in this category. Although there are many perfumes ( local) which are low priced, most of the well known brands are priced out of reach of ordinary Indian consumer. The low quality of the low priced perfumes, often create a negative feeling on the Indian consumer about the value proposition in this category.
c. The grey market and spurious brands act as another deterrent for the consumer.There are fakes of all the well known perfume brands available at every corner of the country. Hence there is no guarantee that the brand which has been bought is a fake one or the original.

CavinKare saw opportunity for a brand that was reasonably priced and ensured good quality to the consumers. That gap gave birth to the Spinz brand. Spinz was positioned on the basis of fragrance. The brand also lived up to the positioning and offered exciting fragrances but priced reasonably. The brand also experimented with packaging. Cavinkare was the first firm to popularise sachet in shampoos ( Velvette was owned by Cavinkare's founder's father). The company tried to make perfumes affordable by introducing sachet perfumes for a price of Rs 10. The company also introduced one time use sachet for Rs 2. All these efforts was to increase the penetration of the category as such. The brand also tried to create a Spinz day to popularise perfumes. Feb 12 was marketed as fragrance day but that initiative did not became that popular.
Buoyed by the positive response of Spinz perfumes, the brand extended itself to talcum powders. The Indian talcum powder market is worth around Rs 650 crore is dominated by Ponds from HLL. Spinz talcum powder was positioned on the same platform as the perfumes. The brand has its stronghold in South India.
Spinz perfumes faced lot of problems during early 2000. The reports suggest that the brand faced lot of packaging issues that prevented it from further growth. In 2005, the brand was rejuvenated. Cavinkare has put new vigour into the brand. The company has roped in South Indian Film actress Ms Asin to endorse the brand. In the new avatar , Spinz is being positioned as a young cheerful modern bubbly brand. The brand retains its positioning based on the fragrance.The brand has enough space to grow because of its excellent value proposition.

Related Brands
Ponds
Yardley
Cuticura
Rexona
Oldspice
source:businessline,cavincare website,magindia