Apr
Ad WAR, who will win?
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We recently witnessed an ad war on TV initiated by the Hindustan Unilever Ltd.(HUL) claiming that its ‘Rin’ detergent powder gives a better whitening effect than ‘Tide’, Procter and Gamble’ s detergent powder product in India. Looking at the AD, some thoughts crossed over my mind.
- What actually is HUL comparing ‘Rin’ with? Advertisement shows ‘tide naturals’, while the lady says ‘Tide hai, khushboo bhi aur safedi bhi’. Even later, it says, ‘tide se kahin zyada safedi de, ab chaukane wale daam mein’. ‘Tide naturals‘and ‘Tide’ are two different products. ‘Tide naturals’ is a low-price band product, how can HUL compare ‘Rin’ with ‘Tide naturals’? Who protests the superiority of’ Rin’ over ‘Tide Naturals’? This is same like comparing ‘Pears soap’ with ‘Lifebuoy’ (both are HUL products).
- The ad fails on several fronts. Of the total length of 29 seconds, 22 seconds are devoted to the publicity of ‘Tide’ viz. 75% of the total time; ad reminds us of the qualities and benefits of using ‘Tide’. That is, the ad ends up publicizing ‘Tide’ even more!
- I won’t blabber about the ethics. But, the ad shocks the common man, who is in a fix if ‘tide naturals ‘and ‘Rin’ are of the same company as such ads were never shown before!
HUL is definitely going through a difficult phase with companies like P&G and ITC eating away its traditional market share. HUL needs to evolve a better strategy to tackle these threats. It has the largest reach in Indian market and does not require cheap marketing techniques. What it definitely requires is better marketing, and revamp of its distribution model which is more hierarchical than others. For an example, if company A reduces the price of its product, HUL’s reduction in price will take more time to come in to effect. This is a great loss of market share!
What needs to be seen is if P&G gets aggressive too in its campaign. And if it gets, we are in store for some real fun in future. But, one thing is for sure, HUL wins or P&G wins, real winner will be the consumer, who can enjoy low detergent prices in these times of high inflation!
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3 Responses to “Ad WAR, who will win?”
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It would be really interesting to see P&G retaliation for this lame ad.
What if they come up with similar ad againt wheels,rin,ariel,surf? Then only the war will be interesting enough.
Dude,
the level of this blog has dropped down significantly. I followed it for initial few months when u guys had launched it and u had put up some good stuff with interesting analyses by siddhesh and different angle approach of Shubham but now just look at the stuff u have written. Totally shows lack of understanding of product category, market dynamics as well as the reason and consequences of the Ad. Guys it would be better if you could involve some people from marketing industry to get to write for your blog. I believe there are some. So just get those people to write these stuff(s) about ads and marketing gimmicks and save sufferings of your readers.
PS: Nothing to do with HUL, P&G. Just an outburst at poor quality of post and the time wasted in reading it and more than that in writing this comment!!
@Anon: We appreciate your feedback. While there have been some articles that have not been upto the mark, there have been so many others that have really transcended benchmarks we had in mind. There have been so many new terms and business ideas coined for the first time on Strat-in. Yes, your comment is a timely reminder for all of us to continue to keep the quality of strat.in as high as we possibly can. But its certainly too early to write off this blog. We have a long way to go….and we ll get there.