TNMG: The Next Marketing Guru » HUL

Truth of Ayurveda, Proof of Science

Angshu — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:39:11 +0000

With the launch of Ayush in 2002 HUL entered ‘Ayurvedic Health Care & Personal Care’ segment. Ayush range offers: shampoos, hair oil, skin cream, soap and nutritional supplements. Recently Ayush has also launched ‘Ayush Therapy Centres’ to provide personalized advices and consultation to the consumers. The consultation services includes not only beauty and skin care but also stress relief, aches and pain relief and weight reduction solutions.

The target segment for the brand is traditional Indian middle class specially women. The brand is positioned as: ‘ayurvedic ki surakhsha sabut ke saath’ i.e. ‘ayurvedic protection with scientific proofs’. A famous Ayush ad shows traditional Indian bahu or daughter-in-law adjusting with everything in her in-laws place but not with beauty cares and asks for Ayush and ultimately succeeds to convince even her mother-in-law to use Ayush – this is perfectly in tune with target segment and positioning of the brand. The tagline of the brand reads: ‘Asar Shuru Adjustment Bandh’ i.e. ‘Adjustment ends when the actions starts’.

Closeup

Angshu — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:45:07 +0000

This toothpaste brand was launched in India in 1975. It primarily targets the youth segment. To promote the youthful image it was the first brand in India to launch the gel toothpaste and is credited to be the creator of that segment. With the re-launch in 2004 Closeup promises to provide the benefit of ‘fresher breath and stronger, whiter teeth’. In tune with the target segment of youth – Closeup is offered in attractive colors & packaging and its ads shows young guys and girls impressing each other with their new found Closeup confidence. Earlier Closeup ads used to focus on technical features like Vitamin and Fluoride content and functional attributes like fresh breath & white teeth.

But lately the theme has changed to emotional appeal of self-confidence. One of its most popular tagline has been: ‘Hasso Toh Khulke Hasso’. Few years back Closeup tried to take brushing to a new level by asking the consumers: ‘Kya Aap Closeup Karte Hain?’ which tries to project the image that Closeup is synonymous to brushing and or something even more than that. Close up changed is tagline to “The closer the better” in 2008 as manifested in this popular “Pass aao na” ad.

Close up is an international brand and present in many other countries other than India. The targeting and positioning of the brand is very similar across countries. The following popular Close up ad from Philippines proves the point. The ad is embedded in a nice music video created by Lowe, Manila. This is a unique to way market a old brand in a new exciting way. Hope you will enjoy the song and the story behind.

Similar to Pepsodent, to gain consumer confidence Closeup offered ‘Shade Card’ so that consumers can check the level of whiteness of their teeth. In 200 Official website of this brand is: www.closeupuniverse.com.

Fair & Lovely – Is marketing meant for exploiting the consumers?

Angshu — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:39:45 +0000

Today we will discuss about the popular personal care brand Fair & Lovely. This HUL skin-care brand for ‘Aspiring’ segment was launched in India in 1978. The brand promises the benefit of ‘making complexion fairer over a period of six weeks’. The target segment for the brand is middle class Indian women who want fairer skin. The message is conveyed in ads where women using the brand become fairer and get ahead in life by attracting men and jobs. Of late, the range of the products under the brand is extended to include: Ayurvedic Fairness cream, Anti-Marks cream, Oil control Fairness Gel Cream for Deep Skin, Fairness Soap and also men’s range: ‘Fair & Lovely Menz Active’.

Fair & Lovely is a brand which has used consumer psychology in an effective manner but whether that was and is ethical or not is definitely questionable. Especially in a country like India where there are many women who are not-so-fair – fairness is considered as a parameter to measure beauty. ‘Scarcity Principle’ says that less the availability of something it becomes more valuable. And Fair & Lovely as a brand has promoted that concept with its entire marketing efforts starting from the brand name to numerous ads. Now, this is a case where marketing raises serious questions about morality and ethics. Should we really promote fairness as the measure of beauty and success of a woman? There have been numerous studies which found that this kind of marketing by companies and media over the years actually led to lack of self confidence and raised doubts about self-dignity in many women worldwide. And as you know without self confidence success becomes nothing but a distant dream. In fact, those kind of market research findings were the key reasons why Dove – the most popular global personal care brand of HUL came up with the famous campaign of ‘real beauty’ showing real women and telling that beauty has got to do nothing with color, races or looks.

This is a serious duplicitous behavior from world’s leading personal care company where one of their brands is promoting artificial beauty by talking about fairness whereas the other talks about ‘real beauty’. Though from STP point of view that makes sense as Dove and Fair & Lovely are catering to two different segments and hence rightly have different targeting and positioning to suit the brands’ marketing objectives. But doesn’t the company have responsibility towards the consumers as well? All the tall talk about serving people, helping to make life better – are those just for fooling consumers? And ultimately does marketing mean hoodwinking consumers to achieve only narrow financial objectives? Though businesses talk about creating value for all the stakeholders – when it comes to practical life does stakeholders mean only shareholders? That brings us to even serious questions about management as a practice. Is money and profit the only and ultimate goals in business? How many more recessions, Enrons and Satyams will it take for us to understand that it is time to walk the talk!!

Sunlight – Spread the Brightness

Angshu — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:41:11 +0000

Launched in 1888, Sunlight is Unilever’s oldest brand in India. Initially Sunlight became popular as a laundry cake. But with changing consumer preference – powder detergent became more popular. As a result over the years the importance shifted to other HUL detergent brands like Surf, Rin and Wheel and Sunlight received a step motherly treatment. When HUL faced the competition from Nirma – rather than using Sunlight as a response they launched a new power brand Wheel. Then they launched detergent cakes under brand names of Wheel and Rin causing further sidelining of Sunlight.

After HLL adopted the “power brand strategy” they planned to phase out this century old brand. But then, they relaunched Sunlight in 2004 as a powder detergent. Currently this range is sold in only two Indian states: West Bengal and Kerala. In the price-quality spectrum Sunlight is placed above Wheel and below Rin. The twin benefits that the detergent brand in India promises are: brightness and color protection. This message is conveyed in Sunlight advertisements showing people wearing bright clothes and spreading cheer and brightness around them. Consequently the tagline of the brand is “Spread the Brightness”.

From 2007 there has been some efforts to revitalize this heritage brand if the ‘Come Clean’ campaign by the ad agency O&M can be considered as a sign of the same.

Worldwide Sunlight is present in different forms in different countries – like a bath soap in Australia and a dish cleaning liquid in Latin America etc.

Below ad is one of the oldest ads of Unilever from 1898 (yes! before the TV days) featuring Sunlight.

Dove is not a soap!

Angshu — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:44:03 +0000

Dove is the HUL soap brand for the ‘Affluent’ or the premium segment. Though internationally it was launched in 1957 – it was available in India for the first time in 1995. Dove stresses on the point that: ‘beauty is not simply about how you look, it is about how you feel’. Technically Dove is pH neutral whereas other soaps are alkaline and hence Dove is mild on skin. From the beginning of its journey Dove was positioned as ‘not just a common soap but one with high content of moisturizing cream’. Consequently, the theme of Dove soap ads still remains ‘Dove is not a soap’ and ‘it has one quarter moisturizing cream’ and to prove the point to the consumers and get their confidence Dove used the PH strip and latest Dove ad shows the comparison of using normal soap and Dove on two sides of the skin. To become a complete beauty care brand Dove has also launched Shampoo, Conditioners, Deodorant and other Skincare products. In the hair care segment rather than Shampoo or Conditioner they are calling it ‘Therapy’: ‘Hair Fall Therapy’, ‘Daily Therapy’, ‘Dry Therapy’ and ‘Breakage Therapy’. Currently Dove is focusing on complete solution to the customers Skin and Hair Care needs and not just the products. This is what the official website of Dove (www.dove.in) says: ‘At Dove, we celebrate and salute the beauty in real women. And we’re proud to usher in 2009 by making women feel beautiful every day.’ Please find below a few latest Dove print ads by its advertising agency O & M which clearly indicates the intention of the brand to go beyond soap to other related categories specially hair care.

Internationally the most talked about but controversial ad campaign by Dove talked about ‘real beauty’. I personally find a dichotomous behavior from the owner company Unilever who also promotes Fair & Lovely. To know more about my opinion and the controversy please refer to this article: Fair & Lovely – Is marketing meant for exploiting the consumers?

Brooke Bond – Liquor of Love to Cheers Your Senses

Angshu — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:43:41 +0000

This brand was launched in India long back in 1903. This leading tea brand of India touches lives of more than 500 million consumers. The four sub-brands of Brooke Bond are: Brooke Bond Taj Mahal, Brooke Bond Red Label, Brooke Bond Taaza and Brooke Bond 3 Roses. Taj Mahal is targeted to ‘Aspiring’, Red Lebel to ‘Aspiring’ and Tazza & 3 Roses to ‘Striving’ segment. Please find below a 1972 Brooke Bond Tajmahal ad featuring bollywood actress Zeenat Aman.

In this ad – notice the focus on functional attributes like stronger liquor and superb taste. Later in late 1980s when tabla maestro Zakeer Hussain was employed as the face of the brand its slogan changed to: ‘Wah! Ustaad Wah! Arre huzoor, wah Taj boliye’.

Of late the focus of Brooke Bond ads has changed to emotional appeal of ‘Raas Pyar Ka’ or the ‘Liquor of Love’. The current tagline of Brooke Bond brand is: ‘Cheers Your Senses’.

Pepsodent

Angshu — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 07:39:31 +0000

Launched in 1993 this brand is for ‘Aspiring’ as well as ‘Striving’ i.e. for both mid and mass segments. The brand stands for non-stop protection from germs even after hours of brushing. Two important marketing tactics by the brand to gain more customer confidence was to offer all its consumers the Germ Indicator in February-May 2002 and Dental Insurance in October the same year.

A very popular and effective series of Pepsodent ads show a child eating out without fear of being scolded by mother as he brushes regularly with Pepsodent where as there is the other child who does not use Pepsodent and hence is afraid of being scolded by his mother for eating out.

Pepsodent has also promoted awareness about dental health by promoting brushing regularly and then with ‘Pepsodent 2 in 1’ ads promoting brushing twice daily: these are win-win solution in the sense that on one hand it promotes dental health and on the other hand more brushing with Pepsodent means more sales for the brand. Pepsodent also offers a range of tooth brushes. Official website for the brand is: www.pepsodentindia.com.

Pears: Aysi Pears Twacha, Aur Kahan

Angshu — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:47:40 +0000

Launched in 1902 Pears is positioned as a ‘pure & gentle’ soap which is good for the skin. Please find below some vintage international pears ads.

These indicate the targeting of the brand to be children as well which goes rightly with its mild image. But contrasted to this in India the targeting of the soap was and is mainly limited to women especially middle aged mothers. Consequently in earlier Pears ads soft smooth skin of mother and her child were shown to get the message to the consumers. The tagline: ‘Aysi Pears Twacha, Aur Kahan’.

The product is characterized by its high glycerin content and transparent looks. Currently Pears has three varieties: the traditional amber variant, a green variant for oil control and a blue variant for germ protection. Recently similar to its some other soap brands HUL is trying to position Pears also using the ‘Beauty’ positioning and hence the tagline “Pears – Unravels your beauty”.

RIN – Bijli giri!

Angshu — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:40:47 +0000

It is the HUL laundry brand for the ‘Aspiring’ or mid-segment. It was launched in India in 1969. This range provides the benefit of ‘dazzling white cloth’ and ‘at affordable price’. This theme has been propagated through ADs showing self-confident people wearing spotless clean clothes. Recently Rin was also engaged in event sponsorship in the form of sponsoring Kid Reality Show ‘Rin Mera Star Super Star’ in Star Plus.

Following ads of Rin shows that the ‘Whiteness’ remains its key focus:
1970s:

2000s:
Like some other HUL brands to gain consumers confidence RIN also launched a whiteness scale. The catchy tag line of ‘Bijli giri!’or lightning strikes (and a similar sign in the RIN logo) perfectly fits the bill with the positioning of the brand.

Happiness Begins with it!

Angshu — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:40:40 +0000

Brooke Bond Bru is another sub-brand under the Brooke Bond brand name. Launched in 1969, this is the coffee brand from the HUL. Bru in different varieties is targeted to all segments of consumers. Bru is credited to be the creator of ‘Instant Coffee’ segment in India. Other variants of Bru are: Bru Roast & Ground and Bru Malabar Roast & Ground. Bru ads use the emotional appeal of ‘Happiness’ and hence the tagline: ‘Bru Se Hoti Hai Khushian Suru’ or ‘Happiness Begins with Bru’.

Of late though the theme of Bru ads remains happiness the tagline has changed to ‘Ek cup Bru aur mood ban jaye’ i.e. ‘Just a cup of Bru makes your mood good’. Enjoy the below popular ad of Bru where the wife comes home tired and the husband gives her a foot massage. This ad rightly balances the changing culture in India with the happiness focused positioning of the brand.