WHATS WRONG WITH HLL?
Hindustan Lever was and is still considered to be a marketing powerhouse like no other, here in India. Its closest rival Proctor & Gamble was a distant second.
There was a time about 5 to 6 years ago, when HLL was the undisputed king of marketing companies in the sphere of consumer products, with an unmatched network of distributors and retailers and a pot full of hot selling products. The network is still pretty much there, and so is the pot full of products, but unfortunately, I don’t think we can add the adjective”hot selling” with any great conviction any longer, vis a vis the products of their competitors.
It was always thought that HLL would maintain its premier status and margin of lead over its competitors for all of the foreseeable future. After all, it had always done so in the past. But we see that HLL has apparently been continuously losing ground. Why is this so? It seems that it was due to an overtly strong and unnecessary response to the perceived threat from competition, which led them to believe that they needed to do much more, when there was really no need to do so.
It started off with the debranding of “SURF”. Prior to this, we had seen the launch of “Surf Ultra” against the very real threat of P & G ‘s Ariel, vwhich was later rechristened “Surf Excel.” Things seemed fine, until Surf was inexplicably, renamed “Surf Excel Blue”, a complete devaluing of the value of the Surf Brand. Surf Excel sought to borrow its pedigree from the value of the Surf mother brand, and here we had a case of the mother brand itself being rebranded to the derived form. Well while Surf turned into Surf Excel Blue, the superior Surf Excel also continued. This led to great confusion amongst the minds of consumers. After all when you have an extension of a brand it is normally expected to be superior, like in the case of the original Surf, and extension Surf Excel. But now you had a situation wherein the Surf Excel was the superior brand and the extension, Surf Excel Blue, was the cheaper and lower quality variant ! Also each of the two variants, though completely different products, were named as well as packaged very similarly. Very many of erstwhile Surf users were at a complete loss as to where there favorite Washing powder had disappeared, and P & G was quick to take the opportunity, lowering the quality and price of Tide, to offer an alternative to the Surf brigade.
We had already seen a process of gradual repositioning of the popular Lifebuoy and Lux, while this was happening to Surf.
Lifebuoy, refused to remain the “tandurusti ka rakshak” and tried to fit into the shoes of “Hamam” as the family soap. However, poor Lifebuoy was caught between being an antibacterial soap, and being true to its newly obtained Family soap image. This led to the spawning of variants, targeted at each segment of the family, and as a result, Lifebuoy failed to hold on to its original fan club of devoted users, the strongly physical male. The launch of the Lifebuoy talc, was even more bizarre, because this was again put forth as a family talc. Where was the “tandurusti ki raksha” which was synonymous with Lifebuoy as a brand? Doesn’t the literal meaning of a lifebuoy also convey the image of a saviour? Then why was it turned into a family soap and a family talc?
Lux, the soap of the film stars. That’s the reason why people bought it. We had the cheap Lux and the aspired for Lux International. Lux was improved upon, and the improvement brought with it regular increase in prices, till it was no longer in the lower priced segment but soon found itself positioned in the mid - upper bracket, which of course left no place for the international. Breeze filled in the gap left by Lux in the lower end of the market.
However, it is a fact that it is actually the masses who are enticed by film stars, and are more influenced by endorsements rather than the upper bracket consumers. And these masses would of course buy a higher priced soap sometimes as a treat, but regularly?? They just wont. Thus Lux had to keep coming up with new variants and limited edition ones too, which interestingly were exotic and different in nature, appealing to its new target audience at the higher end of the soap market. But it also continued to be endorsed by filmstars, which did not really appeal to this bracket of consumers. Result is that Lux does not know what it is, any longer.
Another victim has been Liril. Liril meant freshness. One still remembers the “la…lalalalala….lalalalala.. and Preity Zinta. And the line “ Neembu ki sansanaati taazgi” However now it means sexiness. I really don’t know how the smell of lime is sexually arousing. May arouse your appetite for food I feel , but for sex?? Wonder why HLL’s AXE deo doesn’t have a lime reference then, since it is successfully targeted at users who want to perceive themselves as appealing to the opposite sex.
It continues with the rebranding of Rin Detergent Bar to Surf Excel Bar. I guess soon you will get a Surf Excel blue bar too. And while this goes on, the Rin powder is being relaunched I think, while the Rin bar is on its way out.
Brand Managers need to remember that their products must be perceived as living up to the image created by their advertisements and their advertisements must be appealing to the target audience for the product. Slick ads are fine but try to remember what you are selling and who you are targeting. For example, the BSNL ads and now the Reliance Communications PCO ads. They are not slick ads. Even the oice over in the reliance ad is quite old fashioned. But they are very well crafted ads. Very appealing and understood and identified with, by their rural / semi urban target audience.