Liril : Bring back the Liril girl

Brand : Liril

Company : HLL

Agency : Lowe

If you are looking for a case of an iconic Brand that is going to be killed by poor marketing strategy , look no further, here is Liril for you.

Launched in 1975, the year I was born, this is a brand that built a segment or should I say category for it self in the Indian market. The brand is also the testimony to the genius of India's Ad man Alyque Padamsee. This is what he says about the Liril Brand

The name Liril had been registered by Hindustan Lever from a list sent to them by Unilever in London. Levers were very keen that the soap have striations, wiggly stripes of different colours running across the tablet. I recommended the tablet be blue - because waterfall is blue with white striations. Hindustan Lever was very excited and produced 1,000 tablets for testing.
At this point Derk Wooller, the Marketing Controller of Hindustan Lever's soaps division, stepped in and suggested we add the freshness of lime to our story. He felt that though the waterfall had tremendous emotional appeal, Liril needed a rational ingredient to clinch the deal. I was not averse to this but suggested that we do an `As marketed' test: Blue Liril versus Green Liril with limes. I was wrong and Wooller was right. The rest is history."
Alyque Padamsee in his book A Double Life.

The brand was a run away success and the Liril girl became the talk of the town. The brand has

beenconsistentt with its communication and the effective use of brand imagery. Further on brand imagery can be found in this article , visit http://www.blonnet.com/catalyst/2004/09/23/stories/2004092300100200.htm

Liril was positioned on the freshness platform right from its birth. The girl and the waterfall with the unique jingle ensured that the freshness is experienced by the audience. Liril can be called as an experiential brand and the communication perfectly supported that.

Liril did not change its positioning for 25 years although the models changed, the brand communication was consistent. Then some nut in the company or the agency thought that they should change the communication that worked so effectively. The rest as I say it " Liril became history".

Liril has changed the imagery and the jingle in the name of freshness .The new jingle or the ad never had that freshness. That is why Liril had to change the Ads twice with in a span of five years. Mind you Liril never changed its imagery or the Jingle for 25 years...

Reports say that Liril had to change because of its stagnant marketshare. I think there are reasons for declining market share which can be that the brand failed to understand the changing consumer expectations. There was a flurry of brand launches during the past 10 years and Liril was sleeping all the time " may be resting on the laurels" . It should have hold on its positioning of ' freshness " not by changing its communication but by communicating more, developing variants, bringing in flanking brands or variants and thus owning the whole segment for itself.

But it never happened , Liril tried to introduce the Icy mint variant very late and that too with a different jingle and imagery. We knew that the Old Liril had died. HLL could have used the same communication strategy . Then came the horrible experiment of Orange Liril with a stupid Jingle OOFYUMMA.... excuse me what the hell is that?

The product failed. Then came the new campaign involving a couple and a new jingle " La-ira -ela", the ad was good but where is liril ?

Like Onida , Liril has to come back with the old imagery and old jingle that made liril what it Is ( or WAS?) [ It is a prediction].

When it does that consumers will take the brand to their heart .

Laaaaa lalalala laaa ...................

Tata Indica : Truly more car per car

Brand : Tata Indica
Agency : FCB Ulka
Company: Tata motors

Baseline : more car per car

India is a lucrative market for automobile manufacturers. If we believe the fancy numbers floating around regarding the industry size, this is a market no one can ignore.

Fighting with all the big names in the auto industry is our very own Tata Motors.

Let me be patriotic and say " we have done it". We have our own Indian Car: Indica.
Well You may say that the design was outsourced from IDEA ITALY so this is not 100% Indian. I would say that Tata's are smart so they outsourced it.....

Any way as hypocritic as we are by birth, although we say " sare jahan se acha " , we were ruthless towards Indica. Everyone looked down upon this car from Tata talking about all the negative points about the performance and writing off this dream of an Indian to build an Indian car.

Despite the initial setback with Indica, Tata motors reworked on the engine and relaunched Indica as Indica V2. Now indica is the second largest selling car in India.

Indica is positioned as a value for money car. I have said in my earlier blog that this is a proposition that will always work on Indian consumers, provided the promise is delivered.
Indica delivered its promise. It promised that it will give more car per car and delivered that.

The success of this proposition had an interesting side effect ( positive of course). Tatas have discovered its vision : deliver more value at a reasonable price. The recent launches prove that Tatas have imbibed this "value for money " proposition . The latest products like Safari Dicor and Indigo give many features which were seen only in premium cars.

Colorplus : consistency pays

Brand : Colorplus

Agency : Rubecon

Company : Raymonds



Colorplus was launched in 1993 by Colorplus Fashions which was a unit of Coimbatore based Ambattur Clothing Limited.

It was launched at a time where no global brands were seriously exploring the Indian market. I would say that no serious branding effort was there in place during that time . The ready to wear segment was in a nascent stage.

Colorplus as a brand now has an iconic status in the readymade segment.The brand which is carefully crafted and brilliantly communicated is the perfect example of brand management.

Rajendra Mudaliar, managing director, and Kailash M Bhatia, CEO has been clear on what the brand is and how this is to be communicated.

In 2003 this brand was acquired by Raymonds. I thought that the communication and brand strategy would change but to my pleasant surprise , it is the same. Thank God...

The brand falls under the Smart casual segment in the ready to wear market with its presence in South and west Asia. In this era of celebrity endorsement , this is a brand which uses no celebrity , and Colorplus is always the star. The brand is exposed through careful media selection and you never see a TVC of this brand. The copy and the layout is ever so consistent and the ads has maitained a classy look throughout its existence.

Seen only in premium publications and business magazines reveals that the brand is clear about the target segment.

Raymonds by acquiring this brand has now entered the premium casual wear segment which is now fast growing. With Parx at the lower end and Colorplus on the premium end, Raymonds is hoping to gain a major foothold in the Indian ready to wear segment in years to come.

Hope Raymonds don't mess up this brand...........

Ford Fiesta : Go Fida, excuse me GO What?

Brand : Ford Fiesta

Agency : JWT

Base line : Go Fida


This exciting new powerhorse from the Ford Stable is set to hot up the Indian automobile scene.

Ford has tasted its success with its josh machine which is considered as a stylish and powerful car which is priced sensibly. Then the entire market witnessed a large number of product launches and the competition was carving in to Ford's market. Hyundai with its aggressive marketing was able to beat Ford with their Accent .

Ford is fighting back with the launch of Fiesta.
Fiesta is priced aggressively at around 6lakhs is set to capture a fair share of the market.

As usual Ford is also relying on the bollywood stars to sell its car an this time roped in Abhishek Bachchan to endorse the car. The campaign is executed by JWT.

Regarding the campaign, I have my own reservations. I know hindi but the term Fida is strange to me, so it will be for the entire south indian market. josh although it is an Hindi word, south indian languages also have similar words. but Fida is a real strange word. Only yesterday I came to know that it meant "mad about something" .............well fine....

Ford will have to spent some money on teaching the Non hindi speaking consumers about the main positioning statement " Go Fida"

Marketers should be careful about the positioning statements and its linkages with the market. It is important that they understand a diverse maket like India with 17 odd major languages and million dialects. So does it make sense to have a positioning statement that is simple and could be understood by the target market.

Fiesta will be successful because it offers excellent value for money proposition, the one and onluly one proposition that works in India, but for the campaign and positioning , I have my doubts

Onida : The Devil is Back

Brand : Onida
Company: Mirc Electronics
Agency Rediffusion

I am celebrating the Return of the devil, still wondering why it was taken away in the first place. I was in my teens when they launched the TV with a " devil" . The marketers predicted doom for the brand but the devil clicked.

The Devil was originally created by Mr gopi Kukde of Avenues in 1982. It was a welcome break from the boring TV industry. If I remember correctly, Onida was the first brand to advertise in Television, ie TVC about TV in TV.

The brand had a wonderful time and was in the top three brands in marketshare behind BPL and Videocon. Then the Koreans came and rest is (Became) history. Onida had a fair chance to succeed when the koreans came to the Indian market. Onida was perceived to be a vibrant brand with technological superiority.

Then Mirc electronics decided the switch the agency to O&M.The creative hotshots there convinced Mirc that Devil is outdated. Hence the company changed from the famous " neighbours envy, owners pride" to some thing that i dont remember. What a tragedy......

Here is a time tested and successful positioning statement and a mascot that was so wonderful but it was changed for no reason what so ever. Then the newspaper reports quoted the agency telling that people resented the " neighbours envy" part so they have to change it... it was a lie.

O&M used some funny creatives like two elderly women using TV to terrify some young thing walking through the street. It was the death of a brand. The brand never recovered . Its market share dwindled to abysmal 5% in the late 90's.

2001 marked the return of the devil and the account shifted to Rediffusion. The consumer surveys showed high recall of devil even after 2 decades. The devil has to come back and it came in style.

The first devil was acted out by David Whitbread who was a model coordinator. he played devil for 14 years

The new devil is Matrix insprired and sports a contemprory look. Played by actor Rajesh Khera, the devil now is rocking. Onida which has recovered its market share to 12 % is aggressively playing on the marketing game. With a slew of product launches and careful segmentation, the market is opening to the devil. Onida is careful in positioning itself as a technologically superior premium brand although the prices are very competitive. It has launched the Poison brand which is a premium brand and Oxygen , Black and KY for the value for money segment.

In this Rs 10000 crore crowded market ,Onida has struck the right positioning .

Clinic All Clear : Clear about what it does.

Brand: Clinic All Clear

Agency : Lowe

Baseline: No dandruff No hairfall

Indian Shampoo market is estimated to be worth Rs1200 crore and is hotting up like anything.

This market has long been HLL fort and with a market share of around 55-60%, HLL was the king. The major brands being Clinic Plus - Positioned as family health brand

Clinic All clear -positioned as anti-dandruff

Sunsilk-- positioned as conditioner shampoo.

With P&G getting aggressive in the Indian FMCG market which is estimated to be around Rs 50000 crore with aggressive product launches and price wars, we are now seeing marketing in practice.

Globally P&G has been the market leader in the haircare segment. In India it was not able to replicate its marketing success. Having a share of only 15-20 %, P&G is now concentrating on building the market share and HLL is feeling the heat.

Hll has been working on the best selling Clinic Plus brand with lot of noise in the media. From Shah Rukh to Shahid, the brand was promoted by film stars. Hll also gave a regional touch by roping in Madhavan for the south as its brand ambassador.

But in the Anti dandruff segment, P&G 's Head & Shoulders was the leader with a market share of 35-36% followed by the brands of HLL. HLL having sensed that more growth is in the Anti-dandruff market has launched Clinic All Clear with a variant "Hairfall Defense" with a new packaging and positioned on twin benefit of Less hairfall and no dandruff.

HLL also roped in Bipasha and John Abraham to endorse the brand with the communication executed with perfection by Lowe

The communication was followed with a 360 degree brand building exercise with presence in the Web, contest in association with Contests2win.com and events featuring brand ambassadors. Hll has also relaunched a beautiful site for the brand www.clinicallclear.com which was designed to catch the young with lot of games and forums.

HLL has put their marketing power behind the brand and expects it to deliver and I feel that it will.