Sunsilk is a popular personal care brand from the house of Unilever. It was launched in India in 1964. It is the HUL shampoo brand for the ‘Aspiring’ or mid-segment specially women. The intended positioning of the brand over the years has changed from ‘Shampoo plus cosmetic’ to ‘Beauty Shampoo’ to ‘Hair Expert’. Find below a 1972 Sunsilk ad which focuses only on technical and functional attributes:

But over the years there has been constant effort to add emotional appeal to the brand. Currently following is what the HUL site says about the brand: ‘It knows you, and hence knows exactly what your hair needs’. Based on different customer needs Sunsilk offers different variants. Target segment for Sunsilk being aspiring young women – most Sunsilk ads show young women getting their hair problems solved by using Sunsilk shampoo. The tagline of most Sunsilk ads: ‘Baloon Mein Dhadkan Dil Mein Shararat’. A brand extension of Sunsilk was the launch of Hair Oil.

A innovative marketing idea for Sunsilk was the successful efforts to engage customers and promote the brand by using viral marketing through the brand website: www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com. Some online tools used to engage customers using its website are: ‘Sunsilk Buddy’, ‘Sunsilk Hair Profiler’ and ‘Sunsilk Style Maker’. Of late the brand is trying to make the broader appeal of readying today’s girl for life with the tagline: ‘Life Can’t Wait’ which is also the theme of Sunsilk website shown below:

Though we focused on India in this article – Sunsilk is a leading brand of hair care across the world. The targeting and positioning of the brand across different countries is in line with what we have discussed above. In almost all places it primarily targets teen or middle aged women and harps of the benefits of shiny good looking hair and emotional appeal of beauty. But beautiful hair is not the end. So, let us end this article with an international humorous Sunsilk ad that teaches you why you should be careful even after having beautiful hair. Enjoy… 😀