Sober campaigns whips up soap lather

Sumedha Srivastav - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Soap brands like Dettol, Santoor and Godrej No.1 have penetrated deep into the households with impressive market shares. Their pricing strategy and sober campaigns, have helped these brands to streamline their profits.

Dettol, the germ-protection soap from Reckitt Benckiser, gained maximum value market share among soap brands in the last 12 months ended June 2009. Santoor has become the largest selling soap brand in South India; while Godrej No.1 has crossed a turnover of Rs 500 crore to emerge as a leading soap brand in the same period.

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) saw its top ranked brands - Lifebuoy and Lux lose footing, however, these two HUL brands retained the top two rankings among soaps with dominant market shares.

The market share of Dettol increased from 6.4 per cent in June 2008 to 8.1 per cent in June 2009, placing it ahead of Wipro's beauty soap Santoor as the country's third-largest soap brand by value. However, Santoor retained the No. 3 ranking on a cumulative basis during the last 12 months, with Dettol following close behind.

"Dettol soap has grown share to above 8 per cent in June 2009 period, which is a rare feat in a mature category like soaps, where penetration is about 93 per cent. We will introduce new strategies to further increase our market share." says, Chander Mohan Sethi, chairman and managing director, Reckitt Benckiser.

The company has used print, television and online mediums to educate consumers about hygiene and its importance in its brand campaigns. Recently, its Swine Flu campaign guided consumers about the precautions which are required to fight the deadly influenza.

Sethi also informs about an H1N1 Flu (Swine) digital campaign of Dettol, which positions itself as 'Dettol kills 99.9 % bacteria and Flu viruses' and educates the consumers about the disease.

The digital campaign seems to be an endeavour by Reckitt Benckiser to leverage the rising number of searches on Swine Flu, to awareness on how Dettol can help people maintain personal hygiene.

For Santoor, the 'ageless skin' campaign seems to be the winning factor. Women want their skin to lie about their age and DraftFCB-Ulka, which is responsible for Santoor's media campaign, just did that.

Santoor, which has become the largest selling soap brand in South India, has made that the main selling point of their promotion campaign over the years. The theme of 'ageless skin', captured first in a television advertisement 20 years back, has remained constant over the years.

"While the theme has remained constant, the Santoor woman has evolved. In the first two years, the Santoor woman was at a wedding ceremony. After that she began going to aerobics classes, and then after four-five years we took her to do dress designing." says Ambi M G Parameswaran, executive director and chief executive officer, DraftFCB-Ulka.

Ambi, who was involved with Santoor's 'younger looking skin' media campaign from day one, says the ad was based on a series of studies by Wipro and DraftFCB on women. The study found out that though about 15-20 per cent of Indian women are working women, housewives too have desire to work.

On the other hand, Godrej No.1, the flagship soap brand from Godrej Consumer Products, has crossed a turnover of Rs 500 crore to emerge as one of the leading soap brand in volume terms. The company is adopting a state wise action plan to grow market share.

"The primary focus on Godrej No.1 has been affordable pricing, which has helped the brand gain market share. Low commodity prices have assisted the company in maintaining prices." said Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Consumer Products.

At the bottom of the pyramid, Godrej No.1 is said to have captured market share from similarly priced brands like Breeze and Nirma. The brand's affordable price strategy has managed to keep it ahead of others like Dettol and Santoor in volumes in select geographies like north India, particularly in markets like Punjab, Haryana and Uttaranchal.

In Maharashtra, which is the largest state in the toilet soaps category, the brand is ranked number four. But in Uttar Pradesh, which is the second largest state for toilet soaps as per volume and value, Godrej No.1 has emerged as the second largest brand. "In addition to having a national strategy for our brands, The strategy would be different for different states." said Godrej.

Notably, despite some of Bollywood's biggest stars like Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra promoting it, HUL's beauty soap Lux saw the biggest dip of 2.1 per cent in value market share in the 12-month period ended June.

Lux's share stood at 14.25 per cent at the end of June 2009. Similarly, HUL's germ-protection brand Lifebouy's share dropped from 16.4 per cent to 16.1 per cent during the last one year.

HUL's value-for-money soap brand Breeze also saw its share dip in the 12-month period. Its premium brand Dove was the only exception, gaining value market share of 0.7 per cent.

ITC's Vivel, a relatively new entrant, clocked the third-highest percentage share gain of 0.5 per cent for the 12-month period after Dettol and Dove, though on a smaller base. Chennai-based Cholayil's Medimix lost share of 2.1 per cent over the last 12 months.

The Rs 7,500 crore soaps market grew at 12.4 per cent in the 12-month period. Soaps is estimated to be the second largest FMCG category after detergents in the non-foods segment.