Brand Update : Pureit Ups The Ante

HUL's first foray into the consumer durable market- Pureit is on an aggressive mode. The brand which was launched in 2004 has taken the battle into the premium segment of the water purifier market with the launch of Pureit Marvella. 

Pureit is a classic case of a brand exploiting an important need-gap in the market. Indian water-purifier market worth around Rs 1200 crore is evolving, growing at 15%. The marketing of water purifiers were skewed towards urban markets of India. Only 8 % of the Indian consumers use water purifier which indicates the poor penetration of this product category into Indian households. The major hindrance for this being high price, installation difficulties, electricity consumption and lack of awareness. Eureka Forbes pioneered the growth of this category in the Indian market. Now this category has lot of players and  new product-lines like RO water purifiers has been introduced.

The major players in the electricity -powered water purifier market however ignored the mass market focusing more on the margin rather than volume. These products which were priced at Rs 5000 upwards were beyond the reach of the average middleclass customers. Even though many such consumers were aware of the health benefits of a water-purifier, it was never in the priority list of high value purchases.

Sensing the opportunity, HUL launched Pureit range of battery operated storage-type purifiers at a price range of Rs 990- Rs 1250. These purifiers did not necessitated any installations which was a definite advantage for those who lived in rented houses. The brand was widely tested in South India before the national launch . According to reports, Pureit has already sold more than 1.3 million units becoming the largest selling water-purifier in India in volume-terms. The brand also created a new category of  non-electric storage- water purifier market which is now worth around Rs 300 crore and growing very fast than the electric category.

One of the problems that Pureit faced during the launch was the doubt about brand's efficacy in the purifying business. HUL is new to this industry and not an expert so consumers rightly doubted the effectiveness of its product . To counter that, Pureit ran a very highly advertised " 1 crore challenge " to convince the consumer that its product is more effective than the competing brands. 

After establishing its name in the mass market, Pureit is now targeting the market-creator Eureka Forbes in an aggressive frontal attack by launching the premium brand Pureit Marvella. Marvella is also a a non-electric purifier with storage capability priced at Rs 7000. The brand also launched its Reverse Osmosis water purifier Puerit Marvella RO at a price point of Rs 13500. These sub-brands directly competes with Eureka Forbes's major product-lines. 

The entry of HUL into the Eureka Forbe's territory was marked with lot of legal fights between the brands because of advertising claims and counter-claims. Now the fight is in the field with both the brands trying to out market each other.

HUL in its typical FMCG style is launching Marvella range with a celebrity endorsement. The brand has roped in Farhan Akther and Praachi Desai as the brand ambassador. The campaign is now running featuring these celebrities. 

Watch the ad here : Pureit marvella

The USP of the brand is its advanced warning system which alerts the consumer to change the RO membrane before it stops working.

The entry of HUL has virtually changed the dynamics of the water-purifier market in India. The market creator was totally out-maneuvered by HUL. Eureka Forbes decided not to counter HUL's foray into mass market because of lack of margin. In strategic terms , the decision made sense because low priced products tend to affect both margins and brand -equity. But Forbes failed to see the shift in the market and the growth of the non-electric segment to become the fastest growing segment. The popularity of the mass market segment also gave confidence for HUL to enter the market of Eureka Forbes. Eureka Forbes countered the HUL's entry by lowering the price of its base models. But HUL is such a formidable player that Eureka Forbes may need all its marketing strength to fight this giant.

Related Brand

Pureit : As Safe as boiled water

Eureka Forbes

Kent RO

Brand Update : Dettol & Lifebuoy Creating Hand Sanitizer Category

Indian market is witnessing the creation of a new category in the hand hygiene segment - hand sanitizer. Although hand sanitizer products were existing in Indian since 2002, this category is witnessing lot of marketing action only in the last couple of years.Two giants in the Indian FMCG market is fighting it out in creating this category - Dettol and Lifebuoy.

Hand Sanitizer is an alternative to soap and used for maintaining hand-hygiene . This product which is available in gel, spray, liquid or foam form can be used directly to the hand and unlike soaps need not be washed away. Just apply the hand sanitizer and leave it like that.

It is not Lifebuoy or Dettol which introduced this product in the Indian market. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd , Himalaya, Paras Pharma etc had introduced this product in the Indian market even as early as 2003. GCPL 's brand Protekt is exported to various countries while Himalaya's brand - Pure Hands is a herbal hand sanitizer. But these brands were not able to create a noise in the market so far when compared to Dettol and Lifebuoy.

Indian Hand Sanitizer market is still nascent with an estimated market size of Rs 20 crore (source) . Marketers believe that this category will grow faster owing to the new breed of infectious diseases.

Hand sanitizers are popular in markets like West and Europe because of the consumer awareness ( fear) about hand hygiene coupled with the convenience of the product. The fact that the product can be used anywhere/anytime makes it a very useful product for those who are too much worried about keeping their hands always germ-free.

The early marketers of hand sanitizers in India tried to cash in on the SARS Virus pandemic which created huge amounts of concern and fear in 2002-2003. But the marketers was not effective in converting the fear into enough sales to create a category. When the SARS fear died out, the hand sanitizer market was also dwarfed.

2009-2010 is witnessing another surge of infectious diseases like H1N1 and host of other diseases which are spread through air/water. Since most of these diseases are infectious and spread through socializing, the scope of a convenient hygiene product again surfaced. The trend shows that this surge and fear will last longer than the earlier SARS episode.

As usual, Dettol and Lifebuoy are pushing this category based on fear. The ads shows the probability of germs affecting the consumer at various public places like shopping malls, public transports etc and then advises on keeping hand sanitizer with them always so that they can protect/sanitize their hands all the time.

The ads does the job of scaring the shit out of the consumers and spreading the fear psychosis of contracting diseases everytime/anytime. But thats the job of marketers isn't it ?

The question is whether consumers will be open to the habit of keeping hand sanitizers in the bag and use it everytime they shake hands or uses a public transport, or uses any commonly uses objects like a door handle ?

To be fair to the marketers, the threat is very real. How many of us are aware of the possibility of contracting disease through a publicly used ' door handle ' of the office toilet ? How about the germs in the currency notes that we use on a daily basis ? How about the Bus ?

Oh God !

But how many of us will take the pain of buying and keeping hand sanitizer and using it again and again for fear of contracting disease ?

Many will buy and use it for sure. Like Handwash category, sanitizers will also find takers who are ultra health conscious. There will be consumers who will be attracted to the product because of the sheer convenience of it. The product will be a boon at places where you don't trust the water or the soap.

Now the brands are focusing on fear to promote the product category but as a consumer I am put off by the fear psychosis that these brands are trying to create. I am conscious of the possibilities of diseases but I chose to be little careless about the stuff rather than carrying a hand sanitizer and using it everytime I shake hands with someone.

Having said that I would have been more comfortable if the brands spent more time talking about convenience of the product . I think it will be convenience that will drive the brand and not fear.

What say ?

Brand Update : Ujala Techno Bright

In an aggressive move to take on the giants of Indian detergent market, Ujala has launched its premium range of detergent brand Ujala Techno Bright. Touted as an advanced stain removing detergent, the brand is currently promoted in the southern Indian market.

Jyothi Laboratories which are the owners of Ujala brand, which is the market leader in the cloth whitener category, have big plans for the brand. Ujala Washing Powder which was launched in 2003 so far was catering to the lower price segment. The brand is very popular in the Southern states. Jyothi Laboratories wants to take this brand to the next level and fight against the mighty Surf , Rin , Tide and Ariel.

For this Ujala has roped in none other than Sachin Tendulkar to endorse Ujala Techno Bright. The launch ad is currently running across Southern States. According to news reports, Sachin will endorse the Parent brand : Ujala and Techno Bright may be the first sub-brand to get the endorsement from Sachin.

It seems little odd that a cricket maestro is endorsing a detergent brand but such a move is going to give a big boost to Ujala's brand equity. Across the diverse Indian geographical markets, Sachin's endorsement of Ujala brand will improve visibility and to a certain extent positively impact the image of Ujala. Further, the presence of Sachin Tendulkar will add momentum to the acceptance of Ujala's brand extensions across India.

Ujala Techno Bright 's attempt to challenge Surf is no small fight.Surf has incredible brand equity and premium perception which is not easy to break. Ujala through Techno Bright is aiming for an upward stretch ( low priced to premium) which is a difficult strategy. Consumers perceive Ujala Washing Powder as a medium/low priced product and to make them pay the price of Surf for this product-line- extension is not an easy task. The presence of Sachin Tendulkar may be of some help but will that be enough to break the perception is something to watch for.

The launch ad of Techno Bright is nothing much to talk about. The creative is average and talks about the efficacy of the product in a rational way. The brand right now has not attempted to talk about anything more than functional aspects.

It is interesting to see that despite having a strong personality like Sachin as the brand ambassador, Techno Bright has not used him in the package . I do not know whether the contract restrict such a usage , but the brand would have gained so much if it used Sachin Tendulkar on the brand package because it can impact the purchase decision at the store.

With Ujala Whitener generating cash for the company, Jyothi Lab is attempting bigger role for Ujala brand. Having Sachin as the brand ambassador at this point when his brand equity is at the peak is a very smart marketing move. The company has a strong distribution network and has shown its capability to humble mighty competitors like Reckitt Benckiser. It will be worth the time to watch how Ujala plays this game.

Related Brand

Ujala

Sure : No Sweat

Brand : Sure

Company : HUL

Brand Analysis Count : #456

HUL has launched a new brand in the Indian market - Sure . Sure is an antiperspirant brand from Unilever's global product portfolio. The brand is claiming to be the largest selling antiperspirant brand in the world. Sure is sold extensively in UK and Europe.

Sure is an interesting brand for a variety of reasons. The launch of Sure brand marks another era in the deodorant market in India. The deo market is divided into categories like Body Spray, Deo with germ fighting properties and Antiperspirants. The Rs 700 crore Indian deo market is dominated by the body spray categories. The launch of a global brand like Sure is going to develop the antiperspirant market in India.

For the promotion of Sure, HUL has roped in the actress Asin. The brand is currently running the launch campaign across South India featuring the celebrity.

Watch the launch ad here : Sure

Since the antiperspirant category is new to the Indian market, the brand has tried to educate the customer about the product category in the launch phase. The launch ad essentially talks about what the product is and the comparison between ordinary deo spray and antiperspirant.

Another interesting aspect of Sure brand launch is the question mark over the fate of Rexona. The fact is that Sure is Rexona !!!

While Sure is marketed across England and Europe, the same product is marketed as Rexona in other global markets including India. There are rumors that with the launch of Sure in India, HUL may kill Rexona deo brand in near future.

According to newspaper reports , Rexona which created the deo market in India is now a marginal player in the market with hardly 5% share. HUL virtually messed up the Rexona brand (soap) with lot of experiments like migrating to Hamam. Even in the deo category, Rexona was virtually neglected in terms of promotional spend.

Sure is marketed with the same tagline and brand elements as Rexona. Both Rexona and Sure carries the same logo - the Tick mark and the same tagline " It won't Let You Down". Sure is also using the slogan " No Sweat " in the launch campaign to reinforce the product benefit.

It is unlikely event where you see two different brands using the same logo and tagline. It does not make any marketing sense unless there is an underlying thought of migrating one brand to another. It can be assumed that Sure will launch its full range of deos and Rexona will be slowly taken off the shelves.

The deo market is witnessing intense competition these days with n number of launches happening. The trend these days seems that get a good fragrance, outsource production and do high profile marketing.

Even the antiperspirant market has seen new launches with Garnier launching its product in the category recently. By launching Sure , HUL is making sure that it does not leave any part of the category to the competitors.

Market Statistics : FMCG Market Shares

Today's ( 26/05/10) Economic Times carries interesting market share figurers of FMCG players across various categories in the Indian market. Thought of sharing.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Soaps 47 43.8

Detergents 37.4 36.8

Shampoo 45.3 46.9

Toothpaste 27.9 25.7

Skincare 46.5 45.4

Tea 22.4 21

Proctor & Gamble

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Detergents 13.9 14.6

Shampoo 24.1 22.6

Godrej Consumer Products

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Soaps 9.8 10.5

Dabur

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Toothpaste 9.6 10.6

Shampoo 6.1 5.5

Chawanprash 59.6 60.9

Nestle

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Coffee 41.1 41.8

Chocolates 25.2 25.2

Noodles 63.1 62.2

Colgate

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Toothpaste 49.8 51.2

Toothpowder 43.6 43.5

Tata Tea

April 2009( %) April 2010 ( %)

Tea 21.7 20.2

Brand Update : Knorr

Knorr recently launched another product line extension - Soupy Noodles. The brand is currently running the campaign featuring its brand ambassador Kajol. Soupy Noodles combines both the properties of soup and noodles. The brand is promoting this variant as a new category to be carved out of Noodles .

Knorr brand was doing well in the market after the company shed all the unwarranted product extensions and concentrated on soup category alone. Knorr retained its lost brand equity and is currently the market leader in the soup market in India.Knorr later extended itself into ready to cook range to expand the portfolio.

The launch of soupy noodles can be looked upon as just another interesting variant of soup product line or as a planned foray into Noodles segment. If the soupy noodles remain as a variant in the soup product line, the brand has done the right move in creating excitement in the market. Soupy Noodles will be attractive to the kids who has now the option of best of both worlds. Having said that Soupy noodles is not entirely an innovation since a similar version called Curry Noodles exists in the market.

The second scenario is where Soupy Noodles is a first step of Knorr into extending itself into noodles. If that is the case, then Knorr has not learned from its previous mistakes. Extension of Knorr brand to noodles will make the brand lose its generic status on the soup category. Of course the brand can point out the case of Maggi extending itself to various other categories. But Knorr had a bad history of extension failures and brand name confusion unlike Maggi.

I think soon Maggi will also launch its version of soupy noodles. If the taste is good, Indian market will see the emergence of a new category of soup + noodles.

Related Brand
Knorr
Maggi

Brand Update : Rin Vs Tide Round II

After the high profile direct attack on Tide, Rin has entered the second stage of its aggressive marketing campaign. The brand has started a new campaign called the Rin 1 crore Challenge. The brand is running a commercial featuring the challenge.

This time, Rin has refrained from directly naming Tide . The brand is using the traditional format of masking the competitor in this challenge campaign. The brand has announced Rs 1 crore prize money if any other detergent can prove that it provides more whiteness than Rin ( conditions will definitely apply).

The new ad strikingly resembles the Rs 1 crore purity challenge campaign of HUL's Pureit brand. Pureit's successful campaign may have prompted Rin to copy the campaign format.

The new campaign is aimed at reinforcing the positioning of Rin as "The detergent that provides the best whitening of clothes". By offering a staggering amount, it is conveying the confidence about the brand promise. It is courageous on the part of the brand to make such a move.

Another striking factor about the new campaign is the new brand ambassador for Rin. No its not Amitabh Bachchan . Rin has roped in Kajol as the new brand ambassador. HUL has really flexed its marketing muscle fully. Kajol gives the campaign some amount of authenticity and attraction to the viewers. I doubt whether such challenge campaigns evoke customer participation but it gives opportunity for marketers to advertise and organize events for brand promotion.

It is nice to see the HUL reviving its competitive spirit. HUL is a marketing machine which went into slumber in the last few years. This is a company that has the best marketing minds of India. Good to see these minds back in action.

Somebody wake up P&G....

Related Posts

Rin Vs Tide Round 1

Rin Vs Tide Strategy

Brand Update : Lux

Lux has a new endorser. True to the brand's heritage of being endorsed by the reigning queens of Bollywood, the brand has roped in Katrina Kaif as the new Lux girl.

The brand is currently running the campaign featuring Katrina across the channels for its new Purple Lotus cream variant.

Watch the ad here : Katrina Lux ad.

What is interesting is the change in the tagline of the Lux brand over the last few campaigns. Ever since the brand discarded its classic tagline of " Filmi Sitaroan ka saundarya sabun" , Lux has not been able to find a fitting tagline. The brand later adopted the taglines " Celebrating Beauty " and then later to " Why worry about beauty " . The last campaign had the simple voice over like " Lux with Beauty Oils ". The brand this time has further reinforced the USP of the brand as " Soap with cream and beauty oils".

This time Lux has used a new positioning " kaliyon se Thwecha ke liye" translated to " Skin as soft as budding/blossoming flowers ". While Lux with beauty oils is a more rational feature oriented pitching, the brand is also talking about the brand promise of a " Softer looking Skin". It is good the see Lux settling with its USP and positioning.

But the gain of Lux has resulted in a loss for another brand Dyna. Dyna which is the soap brand from Anchor Group was banking on Katrina Kaif for building the brand. The entire Dyna brand was heavily depended on Katrina rather than its positioning or differentiation. With Katrina ending the association with Dyna, it will be interesting to see the future of Dyna brand.

Related Brand

Lux

Brand Update : Rin Vs Tide , The Strategy

According to latest news report, the Calcutta High Court has restrained HUL from airing the controversial campaign against Tide. HUL has been given 72 hours to comply with the order ( Source)

The high decibel comparative ad of Rin generated huge buzz in the market. The direct comparative campaign evoked mixed reaction across the media. That single controversial ad generated crores worth of buzz about the brands in question.

The current high profile aggressive stand of Rin has a background story. There was a proxy war going on between Rin and Tide since December 2009. During December, P&G launched the low priced variant of Tide branded Tide Naturals. Tide Naturals was priced significantly lower to the Rin. Tide Naturals was launched at Rs 50 per Kg , Rs 10 for 200 gms and Rs 20 for400 gms. Rin was priced at Rs 70 per Kg at that time.

The reduced price of the Tide variant was an immediate threat to Rin. Since Tide already has an established brand equity, Rin was bound to face the heat. Although HUL had another low priced brand Wheel priced at Rs 32/Kg, Tide was not in the same category of Wheel.

Rin had to cut the price to resist the market share erosion. As discussed elsewhere in the blog, HUL was facing a steady erosion in the market share in most of the categories. In the detergent category itself, the brand faced a market share fall of 2.5% in December 2009. With P&G starting a price war, HUL had to react and it did by cutting the price of Rin by 30% to Rs 50 per Kg. ( Source ) .

HUL also reacted to the Tide Natural's price war in a ' Guerrilla Marketing ' way. It took P&G to the court regarding the Tide Natural's advertisement. The contention was that Tide Naturals was giving the impression to the consumers that it contained natural ingredients like Sandal. The court ordered P&G to modify the campaign and P&G had to admit that Tide Naturals did not contain any Natural ingredients. ( another example of a brand swaying over to unethical marketing practices).

While P&G opened a war in the price front, HUL retaliated by opening two war fronts. One was the direct comparative ad and other through the court order asking P&G to modify Tide Naturals Ad and to admit that Tide Naturals is not ' Natural'.

I think that it was Rin which won the Round 1 of this war. It generated enough Buzz about the brand with all the media talking about the campaign. Rin was also able to neutralize the aggression of P&G to certain extent.

Tide chose not to respond because further fuel to the fight can highlight the fact that Tide Naturals does not contain any 'Natural Ingredients " which may negatively affect the brand's standing in the consumer's mind. So it is better to play the role of a " poor" victim at this point of time.

P&G can celebrate because of the free advertisement it got for Tide Naturals because of the comparative ad of Rin.

It is interesting to see the academic angle of this concept called Comparative advertising. From my little digging of information, it was evident that the academic research is also clueless about the effectiveness of comparative advertising. There are enough evidence to prove that comparative ads work better than non-comparative ads and vice versa. So academicians are as clueless as the practitioners in this regard.

According to academic literature, Comparative ads are those ads which involves directly or indirectly naming competitors in an ad and comparing one or more attributes in an advertising medium ( Alan T. Shao, Yeqing Bao, and Elizabeth Gray,Comparative Advertising Effectiveness:A Cross-Cultural Study Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Fall 2004)

There are two broad types of comparative ads. One is the Direct comparative ads which compares the competitor in more than one attribute. The second type is the Indirect comparative ad which projects the brand as the Leading Brand rather than comparing on certain attributes.

In the marketing world ( globally) comparative ads are commonly used across categories. Some of the relevant observations regarding comparative ads are given below.

• Comparative ads are perceived to be beneficial to the consumers since more information is provided to him by the competitors. Comparative ads are encouraged in certain markets like USA by the regulators because it increases transparency and provides more information to consumers.

• The comparative ads generally result in counter arguments which often creates such a noise that it discounts the original argument/information. Consumers tend to discount the claims by both the competing brand because of the arguments.

• Comparative advertising strategy is more effective for smaller brands rather than established large brands. By challenging a larger brand through comparative ad , the small brands tend to derive more acceptance and awareness than the larger brand.

• Comparative ads are found to be more effective for categories where consumers tend to use their analytical mind. Comparative ads tend to fail where consumers use imagery while evaluating the brands. For example, products like automobiles use comparative ads extensively and with effectiveness.
• There are also studies which shows that male consumers are more attracted towards comparative ads compared to female consumers.

Although Indian marketing world have seen lot of comparative ads, the current Rin Vs Tide is a rare case of direct comparative ad where the brand has taken the competitor brand's name and challenging it head on. That is the main reason behind the media noise about the campaign.

P&G India always was a laid back competitor in the FMCG market . Despite having the product portfolio and market strength , it never realized its potential. The company was happy with their minuscule market share in the various categories in the FMCG business . I am not sure whether P&G will react aggressively to the current HUL onslaught and if at all they did ,will it sustain the fight for long.

Related Post

Rin Vs Tide Round 1

Brand Update : Rin Vs Tide

Rin Strikes Again. But for the better or worse ?

Last day, I saw the latest ad for Rin , a comparative ad directly against the competitor Tide. It was a shocker.

Watch the ad here : Rin Vs Tide

This is the first time that HUL has directly compared Tide with Rin. The ad even have the tagline " Rin offers better whiteness than Tide".

According to ET, P&G has took HUL to court over this ad. The ad was timed to coincide with the long weekend so that HUL could play the ad before the Court hearing.

HUL is currently under severe pressure from its aggressive competitors. The market share of most of HUL brands has come down drastically over the last few years. The brands are facing pressure at all price points. Along with the domestic pressure, HUL is facing the heat from the parent Unilever. The Indian operations is under direct scrutiny by the Unilever CEO Paul Polman.

Last year, HUL tried to restructure its brand portfolio and increased the adspend on most of the core brands. But it could not arrest the decline of the shares of some key brands to the competitors like P&G , Godrej and ITC.

This desperation has clearly manifested in the latest ad for Rin. What on earth do a brand like Rin get into a direct comparative spat with its competitor. The ET report mentions that the ad was created because HUL executives feel that Tide is slowly neutralizing the whiteness (point of difference) USP of Rin. Hence Rin is trying to tell the consumers that it has more whitening property than Tide using a direct comparison.

In my personal opinion, Rin chose a wrong way of telling its superiority to the consumer . Last time I saw a direct comparative ad war was between Horlicks and Complan. Horlicks started the direct comparative ad and got a very very aggressive reply from Complan. The current status is that Horlicks stopped the comparative ad and Complan is continuing its aggression against Horlicks. It was an unnecessary move from Horlicks which woke up a laid-back competitor like Complan. I think that in that ad war, Complan won over Horlicks ( not in sales terms but in share of noise ).

The same thing is going to happen with Rin. It is going to lose this war primarily because there was no need for a direct comparison with Tide atleast in the ads. . If you observe the ad, 22 seconds of the 30 second ad is dedicated to Tide alone. That means in around 75% of the time, the ad talks about Tide. Interestingly the ad even mentions the USP of Tide as " It has fragrance and has whitening property". Then the rest of the 8 seconds talks about Rin. So if HUL has blasted some 30 lakh in the current promo, 22.5 lakh of it was spent on promoting Tide. Why should you ever mention your competitor in your ads ???

Watching the ad, one homemaker commented " I never knew Tide and Rin was from the same company, otherwise how can they show these two brands together in the same ad ? " .

The current campaign lacks any long term objectives. The brand is chosing a short-term path when the issue was a long-term competitive threat.Instead of spending such money on this crap ad, HUL could have run some serious sales promotional campaigns which could have prompted consumers to opt for Rin . It could have filled the retail outlets with Rin POPs. It could have run retailer campaigns to fill the shelves with Rin rather than Tide. HUL still has a huge distribution reach and strength compared to P&G, it could have won the war hands down had it capitalized on the retailer support alone. If Rin was too worried, it could have bought back Big B as the brand ambassador which could have added punch to the tagline " Chamakte Rahna".

Now the outcome of the ad war will be that HUL will be retrained by ASCII or the Court from further playing the ad . It means that Rin had adapted an unethical means against the competitor which will cause an unwarranted blemish on the brand reputation. Second outcome is that it will encourage Tide to be more aggressive in the market. Tide now has been officially and publically acknowledged as the competitor for Rin. Third outcome is that an ad war will start which will benefit the respective advertising agencies and the media.

Related Brands

Rin

Tide

Brand Update : Sunlight

It has been a long time since I wrote an update on Sunlight. This brand which is the oldest detergent brand from HUL was witnessing a revival of sorts. In my last post on Sunlight, I had commented that the brand was languishing because of the lack of support from the company.

2008 saw some brand activity aimed at reviving the fortune of this brand. Sunlight is not a national brand. According to news reports, the brand is a leading detergent brand in some markets like Kerala. Hence the brand was not getting enough support from the company in the past years.

HUL was facing the critical issue of focus in the past few years. It had a plethora of brands which had regional presence but no national foothold. Various leaders at HUL had different ideas about such a brand portfolio. Some CEOs ruthlessly cut the brand portfolio trying to focus on certain number of brands while some others believed in market share and volume game. This divergent views about the brand portfolio created a sense of directionless in the marketing activities of this marketing giant. HUL never seemed so vulnerable in the Indian market. The last decade saw the company venturing into confused brand strategies which ultimately helped other FMCG companies to cash in on market shares.

Sunlight was one such brand which lost its relevance in the strategy of HUL. I had commented that HUL is not spending enough for this brand. However, that complaint is now resolved. 2008 saw a campaign for Sunlight's new variant Sunlight Orange.
The brand is running a campaign in most of the channels : Watch the tvc here

I was rather surprised at the campaign because it was an unusual campaign for Sunlight. An animated ad for a detergent brand was something very unique. The ad typically look like that of brands aiming kids. I still wonder the logic of having an animated ad for a product like Sunlight. The characters, the song , everything was ideal for a confectionery or a toy . The ad is for anew variant of Sunlight which is having orange extract which will make the clothes shine better.

How ever, the ad seems to have some sticky factor although the Sync with the brand was less. I guess that this promotion will work in rural markets because of the novelty of the idea. Some campaign is better that nothing. In that sense, Sunlight brand can breathe a sigh of relief.

Related Brand
Sunlight

Brand Update : Rexona (Reborn November 2009)

HUL never ceases to surprise me. One year back , HUL decided to kill Rexona and migrate the brand to Hamam. The brand also launched a high profile campaign announcing the migration of Rexona to Hamam. It created a Hamam variant named Hamam Abhyangasnanam and all the ads screamed - Rexona is now Hamam Abhyangasnanam .
Yesterday , I was surprised to see a television commercial of Rexona. So the brand has been resurrected after one year. I am not sure why a company like HUL has such a complicated brand strategy. How can a company decide on killing one brand, spent crores of money in promoting the brand migration and after one year decide to bring back the killed brand??

If the company doing this is an amateur firm, then it can be seen as a learning experience but when the company is HUL, no logic can explain this. Can a company like HUL misjudge consumer mindset like this ?

The only reason I see is that there is some serious brand vision issue with HUL. The company has lost its vision for the brands. There is a discontinuity in the strategy for the HUL brands and this is evident in the way HUL has dealt with the brands in recent times. I have a feeling that the brand managers have lost a long term focus on the brands. They are now driven by the ROI and short-term profitability which is driving them in unnecessary brand extensions and migrations.
At the deo front , Rexona deo is a neglected brand . The promotions are not good enough and nothing exciting is happening at that domain. It is time that HUL devise some longterm brand vision for its brands before it is too late.

Anyways , as a customer, I am glad that Rexona is back. This is a sensible brand and have a potential to be a good simple family soap.

Related Post
Rexona

Brand Update : Lux

Lux got bigger. The brand has come back in style. Lux released its first commercial featuring the most famous "Star Couple " of bollywood - Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. The brand is currently running this high profile campaign across the media space.

Watch the ad here : Lux new ad

HUL has been facing lot of heat from the competition. Most of its best sellers were losing market share and competition getting aggressive day by day. Despite having very popular brands, HUL began losing shares especially in the personal care category.
The HUL brands are facing tough competition from players like ITC , Wipro ,Godrej and the like.

Recently I checked on the HUL products purchased at my home , I was surprised to find that we have dropped many HUL products from our shopping list. In the soap category itself, we never purchased an HUL soap for the past 3 months or so. These spaces are now occupied by brands like Vivel,Dettol, Santoor etc.

In my earlier update on Lux, I mentioned that HUL is not promoting the "original " Lux and not using the equity of Aishwarya Rai. The new campaign involving the two biggest stars of bollywood gives a huge thrust to the brand.

Ordinary consumers seems to be very much impressed by the new campaign. My mother liked the ad so much that she plans to buy Lux soon.

Personally I feel that the ad could have been different. The theme is nothing new and is used by many brands before. But the Star Couple makes the theme irrelevant. The charm and the chemistry of the couple make good the flaws in the "big idea".The ad has a sticky factor and in that sense Lux benefits.

The current campaign although expensive gives the required thrust for Lux. Lux badly needed some thing new to bring back the consumers who switched to other brands and never returned. The brand had made a strong comeback and that too in style.

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Lux

Brand Update : Rin

It has been quite a while since I wrote about Rin. The brand was moving through various experiments in extensions and positioning. The brand merged one of its extensions with Surf Excel and withdrew some others. Frankly it was a real mess.

The brand was also experimenting with its promotional messages. Rin is positioned on its " Whitening " ability. The brand has remained focused on its core brand promise. But Rin was experimenting a lot with the communication of this promise. The brand could not find a tagline that was powerful enough to convey the brand promise.

In 2008, the brand came up with the promise of Double Whiteness. Rin adopted the tagline " Duguni Safedi, Duguni Chamak " .
Watch the tvc here : Rin

The ad was catchy but somehow for me, a connection with the tagline, the theme and the brand was not strong. Rin was trying to ladder up to a higher level need but the connection couldn't be established.

This year , Rin came with another advertisement with a new tagline " Chamakte Rahna " ( meaning Keep Shining).
Watch the tvc here : Rin Chamakte Rahna

The brand has finally found its right positioning statement. Chamakte Rahna is a wonderful tagline with immense potential and possibilities for new campaigns. The tagline has a strong connection with the brand promise and at the same time helped the brand to ladder up . The ad is also very nicely made .
Chamkte Rahna is a tagline that gives the brand new opportunities to communicate with the consumers. The core idea that the tagline conveys is " to realize one's potential " . Rin has already started promoting its new found positioning theme during the Dance Premier League where the contestants are made to say the tagline. The brand is celebrating the tagline quite well.

Kudos for the brand team.

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Brand Update : Knorr Soups

Finally Knorr brand decided to do what it does best - Selling Soups.After messing up with extensions and brand name confusions, Knorr has decided to concentrate on soups. The brand is currently running its latest campaign featuring the brand ambassador Kajol.

Watch the Tvc here : Knorr Soups

The ad is interesting because it aims change the way Indian consumers look at Soups. Soup is not a popular part of Indian consumer's cuisine. According to Financial Express, Indian prepared soup market is worth Rs 120 crore and Knorr have a market share of over 70%. But given the size of Indian consumer space, the brand feels that the pie should be bigger.

The new campaign aims to do just that. HUL is a master in building and owning categories. The current campaign is aiming to build the soup category. To build the category, the brand has to bring in new consumers regularly buy and use soups.

Knorr is now being repositioned as a 7'o'Clock snack. Don't confuse the usage of the term Snack. Knorr is not going to compete with Lays or Bingo but aims to give the consumers a valid reason for buying this product by calling it a snack.

As a consumer, I never thought of regularly buying soups at my home. We used to indulge in soups at the hotel but seldom at home. Only some times I bought soups but not regularly because there was no perceived reasons for buying it regularly.

Knorr is giving consumers like me a reason for regularly buying it. It is common for little ones to become hungry at around 7-8 pm. This is a problem that most mothers face. You give something to kids and they will not take dinner .

Knorr is now offering a solution to this common problem.Give soups to the kids as a seven o clock snack. The brand tells mothers that giving soup to kids is a healthy option compared to any other snacks. Such a repositioning will help many non users to try out the product category. Kajol adds more punch to the entire exercise.

The brand now has a tagline " Tummy bhi Khush, Mummy bhi khush " meaning " Tummy is happy and Mummy is also happy ". The only issue whether the kids gets bored with soups.

The current campaign is a marketing lesson. Being a market leader does not make good brands complacent. Smarter brands build categories and end up owning it.

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Knorr

Brand Update : Pears

It has been a long time since I wrote anything about Pears. The fact was that there was no big development about the brand for the past two years. The brand is regularly and consistently promoted across various media.

The brand extended itself to kid's category with the launch of Pears Junior and also into personal care segment with products like face wash. Pears also launched variants like Mint, Aloe Vera,Oil control etc during this period. Although the brand launched these variants, the core positioning of the brand remained the same for the original soap.

Recently I saw the new commercial of Pears

Watch it here : Pears

The brand is very consistent about the positioning strategy. Pears is built on the wonderful relationship between the Mother and

Child. All Pears ads captured this emotion quite perfectly. The brand focused on its " Transparency " and is positioned as a " Pure and Gentle " Soap.

This time too, the brand follows the same theme. The significant addition is that now Pears has a tagline - Masoom.

Masoom translates to Innocence . So Pears now celebrates a new brand value - Innocence.

The new campaign is nice but as a Southie I did not quite understood the dialogue. But the cute child and the theme always work the magic.

I am assuming that Pears brand is serious about the Masoom Tagline. Masoom concept works very well for Pears. The concept of innocence fits with the " transparency " and Pure & Gentle positioning.

Pears was one of those brands which did not have a tagline. With out the help of the tagline , the brand was able to communicate its core positioning. The core brand values of Pears was communicated through visual cues .

The tagline of Masoom seems to gel with the brand. Whether and how the brand is going to use this tagline in future is something to watch for.

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Brand Update : Liril

In my last brand update on Liril, I mentioned the relaunch of Liril as Liril 2000. This week's Brand Equity carried a story about the new adventure of Liril 2000. Read it Here .

As mentioned in the report, Liril is currently repositioned as a soap that refreshes 2000 vital body points.

I was really surprised at the news that Liril is copying the international brand Lever 2000 of the parent Unilever. The positioning of Lever 2000 and Liril 2000 is the same. The only difference is that Lever 2000 is white in color.

I would say that this marks the sad demise of one of the iconic brands in India. Liril has lost its entire brand personality and now is degraded as the poor cousin of another brand. This is strikingly similar to the automotive brand Maruti Zen which again had this same sad story.

HUL in recent times is in the process of bringing in international brands by replacing Indian brands. Clinic All Clear has been changed to Clear. Now Liril is being morphed into Lever 2000.

This is very surprising that a company like HUL ,which has built some of the iconic Indian brands, resort to killing its brands to make way for brands from its parent company.

I cannot buy the argument that Liril 2000 was launched to rejuvenate the Liril brand. If you are rejuvenating a brand, why should you copy the positioning of another brand and import its entire brand elements and even advertising ? A possibility of Liril 2000 being rebranded as Lever 2000 cannot be ruled out . HUL is notorious for such extra-ordinary marketing practices.

If you were really keen on rejuvenating Liril, any person with common sense will tell you to bring back the old memories. A campaign with the old jingle and the imagery will instantly bring this brand back to life. Every newspaper, channel and blogs will write about the comeback of Liril. (Now also blogs and newspapers are writing but not praising the brand) . But alas....

To be fair to Liril, I liked the concept of rejuvenation and 2000 body points. I would have loved it ,if it was for Lever 2000 but not for Liril On the positive side, the old imagery and the ads are popular among a segment of consumers who has now become old. For the new generation, they may have heard about the famous waterfall and the girl but never have experienced the it in real time. So for an uninitiated 20 year old, Liril 2000 may be a new experience. That may be what HUL also is hoping for....

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Liril
Brand Update - Liril

Dollops : RIP (1989-1995)

Brand : Dollops
Company : Cadbury/HLL


Brand Analysis : 403

Dollops is another MNC brand that bite the dust in Indian market. This much hyped brand was launched in India in 1989 by Cadbury's in association with Brooke Bond. Dollops was one of the first high profile MNC brands to enter the Indian market.

Dollops gained instant consumer interest because of the endorsement from Cadbury's. The brand was positioned as a premium icecream and was able to make a significant hype during the launch.

Ice cream business at that time was dominated by local players and powerful brands like Kwality. Cadbury later found that the market was not as juicy as it thought to be. During 1993, Cadbury began the process of focusing more on its confectionery business.

This lead to the hiving off the unrelated businesses like ice creams. It was around that time Hindustan Lever Ltd began to aggressively pursue their interest in ice cream market. In an acquisition spree, HLL acquired Kwality and Dollops. Cadbury sold Dollops to HLL in 1993.

Typically, HLL played around with the brands it had acquired. HLL had its international Wall's brand which it was planning to launch along with Kwality and Dollops. HLL found that Kwality had a huge equity in the market and decided to keep that brand .

Dollops could not be fit into the planned portfolio strategy of HLL and had to be killed.By around 1995, Dollops was slowly eased out from the market.

Dollops had only a short life in the Indian market. Dollops shot into limelight only because of the Cadbury's brand endorsement. The brand was in a tough market which had even humbled the mighty HLL. For Cadbury's, Dollops became a liability when it chose to concentrate on its core business. For HLL, it was a costly exercise of killing a competing brand.

Dollops is a brand that failed not because of any product related reasons. Some of the flavors of Dollops were a hit with the consumers. It failed because of company related factors.

Picture courtsey : Business Line

Brand Update : Liril

After a long long time, the iconic Liril is back. Yesterday I saw the new tvc for Liril. The campaign looks foreign, complete with foreign models and settings.

The new tvc talks about 2000 points in our body which when touched will refresh us!!!! The ad uses the theme of a playful interaction between a father and baby to drive home the power of touch and these 2000 sensitive body points.

The ad claims that using Liril will rejuvenate those 2000 body points to keep you FRESH...

Well... some brands will never learn from mistakes. After the dumping of the famous imagery of Liril girl and the waterfall, the brand has never recovered. The fall of this iconic brand was accelerated by some stupid campaigns like Uff Umma and mindless product-line extensions like Orange Liril.

Now comes another half-hearted attempt to rejuvenate the brand. Although the new ad has a touch of class, it does not gel with the brand image of Liril that we had in our mind.

Another interesting development is that the entire product has also being changed. The brand packaging has been changed to dark green and the shape of the soap is changed to rectangle.

I still don't understand why the brand has not thought about bringing back its iconic positioning on freshness and its brand element of waterfall and still famous music. I am not saying that the brand should exactly replicate the earlier ads but it can creatively take advantage of that brand image which is still there in the consumer's mind.

Liril's consumers has become old and the new generation does not know much about this brand. But the collective memory and images are still there in the consumer space. It is also interesting to note that no other brand has been able to take up the space of Liril. So there is still lot of opportunity for Liril but going by the new campaign, that opportunity has been wasted miserably.

As a consumer , I still miss this soap.



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Liril

Brand Update : Lifebuoy

Lifebuoy has taken a vow to make India healthy. The new campaign " Banaye Healthy Hindustan".
The new ad campaign takes the route of Before- After theme.

The brand selected two apartment complex for this experiment. In one apartment, the children were asked to use Lifebuoy soaps 5 times a day and another apartment were selected where there was no change in the lifestyle . After the experiment, children in the apartment where the brand was used recorded remarkable increase in terms of school attendance and a decrease in the incidence of diseases. Lifebuoy is claiming that the experiment proves that using the brand 5 times a day can dramatically reduce the chance of getting illness and improve school attendance by 40%.

The current campaign is an extension of the famous Swastya Chetana initiative of the brand where the children are encouraged to wash their hands with soaps inorder to reduce the incidence of diseases like diarrhea.

This time Lifebuoy is using the before-after theme . Indian brands are right now using the high-risk before-after theme. Horlicks was the one which came to my mind which had successfully used this experiment format to catch the consumer. The strategy is risky because the claims has to be authentic otherwise the brand will be in trouble. Secondly these claims should be believable.

HUL has tried a similar campaign for Pepsodent ( Dishum Dishum campaign) where it encouraged kids to brush their teeth twice a day. The campaign was a highly successful one.
Through the new campaign , Lifebuoy is expecting similar success.

It is commendable for a brand to strive hard for a noble cause. The brand has chosen a right cause which mutually helps both the brand and the community.

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Pepsodent