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JUST IN CASE
7
EON CAMPUS
THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE
TUESDAY N FEBRUARY 25 N 2014
Can Liril get back that
lime and lemony zest?
Positioning still relevant in highly competitive market
VISHWADEEP KUILA
T
he soap market in India is a
high-penetration (98 per
cent) category with a multitude of brands. The market is estimated at Rs 10,000 crore. Lifebuoy is
the top soap brand, in terms of market share, followed by Lux, Santoor,
Dettol and Godrej No.1, in that order.
The two major segments in this
market are beauty and health. Beauty
is the bigger segment at Rs 5,000
crore whereas health, at Rs 3,000
CASE STUDY
crore, is the faster growing segment.
Other segments are herbal/ayurvedic and medicated soaps. In terms of
prices, the soap segments are:
Mass: Lifebuoy, Godrej No.1
Popular: Hamam, Medimix, Vivel, Lux
Premium: Dove, Fiama Di Wills,
Mysore Sandal
Super Premium: Mysore Sandal
Millennium Soap
Liril as a brand is still pretty prominent in the minds of the consumers
in their thirties and forties. The
brand acquired a celebrated status
with pathbreaking advertising and
PR around it. Launched in 1975, in its
earlier years the soap was positioned
on the platform of freshness from its
lime ingredient. The visual cues of a
waterfall, a woman bathing under it
and a signature tune, were used to
stand out. Over the years, while the
setting changed, the positioning and
the depiction of the protagonist playfully enjoying the experience, escaping reality and forgetting everything
else, were maintained.
Consequently it had garnered 14
per cent of the market during its
peak and was among the top three
along with Lifebuoy and Lux.
Its journey since then has, however, been chequered. In 2005 as a result of loss of market share, Liril was
re-launched as Liril 2000, a skincare soap for the family. The positioning was drawn from an interna-
THE TASK
●
●
You are the head of the soaps business at Unilever and have been
asked to either withdraw the Liril brand owing to its low market
share, or work out a strategy to revive its fortunes.
................................................................................................................................................................
●
●
Analyse the current strategy and recommend to the business
head what Hindustan Unilever should do with the brand.
................................................................................................................................................................
●
●
Give your recommendations in not more than 700 words. As this
is a live brand, you can use secondary data available to further
add to the case facts.
................................................................................................................................................................
tional product in the Unilever stable,
Lever2000.
The feeling was that freshness had
become a generic benefit in the soap
category. The brand had experimented with variants and forms,
shower gel in 1994, a cologne variant
in 1996, Liril Rainfresh in 1999, and
even an orange and icy blue variant
followed by an aloe vera and lemon
introduction, all with little success.
The brand continued to slide in market share and also in the minds of the
consumer. Price-wise it continues to
be in the premium soap category and
competes with the likes of Dove, Fiama-di Wills, Lux International.
green marbled soap with a lemon
fragrance. The brand was launched
in 1975 as a response to research
which showed that the only time
available to the housewife was in the
bath. She would use that time to relax and try and escape into a world of
fantasy. Lintas, the advertising agency for Liril, had to come up with a
creative execution for escaping into
fantasy and it came up with ‘a girl
bathing under a waterfall’.
Karen Lunel, an airhostess with
Air India, was chosen as the firstever model for Liril.
The advertisement was a very bold
execution for the times but was a
roaring success. The Liril girl became an embodiment of an exciting
HISTORY OF THE BRAND
Liril was conceived of by a group of life escaping the mundane and estabyoung managers from HLL, as it was lishing the brand as an aspirational
then called, and Lintas, which was possession for the housewife.
Liril over the years has come up
instructed to create a freshness soap
in the premium price segment. Their with multiple product innovations
first attempt was a blue soap with the such as a shower gel in the early
promise of fresh mountain breeze. 1990s, a blue variant called Liril Rain
This idea did not work too well in Fresh in 1999, which was reresearch. They then developed a launched in April 2002, Liril Icy
Cool Mint Fresh and in 2004 the
Liril Orange Splash. The brand today
has negligible market share and saw
a steep comedown from being the
number three in the soaps category.
In its latest avatar, the Liril 2000
seems to be aimed at men, with a
commercial which shows a man using the soap and the claim of soft and
healthy skin. All the launches in different product categories under the
brand have failed. Currently it has a
market share of less than 1 per cent in
soaps. However, Unilever understands that in the current fragmented and highly competitive market of
soaps, building a new brand is ex-
Vishwadeep Kuila, an alumnus of IIM-A, runs a marketing consultancy in Chennai, Brand
Vectors. This is a case prepared by the author and not an industry review. Figures used are
from secondary research sources and used only as inputs for respondents to devise strategy.
The author does not claim to have first-hand information from the company mentioned here.
How the brand can regain its equity
VISHWADEEP KUILA
T
he rise and fall of Liril has been
a unique case. A lot has been
written by many analysts,
mainly hinting at its positioning losing
relevance and that today’s woman
needs something else to fantasise
about and a bath under a waterfall is
ANALYSIS
passé. In my view, this is too simplistic
an analysis. To figure out whether Liril has any steam left in it or not, one
has to analyse why it became successful and where it lost the plot.
What made Liril successful?
It was clearly a focused positioning
on freshness and the brand’s ability to
fill an aspirational gap. While other
brands were looking at serious claims
of health and beauty, Liril brought in a
sense of carefree fun to the bathing
experience. And what really worked
for it was how it executed this positioning.
The soap was possibly the first to
have the two-colour streaked effect,
with shades that were different from
the pink and white or herbal green.
The fragrance was unique for those
times. And, of course, the communication made sure it stood apart and
gave a very different dimension to
bathing, which no one had tried before
in India. It was the sheer likeability
and freshness of the advertising
which, even while it shocked
some, was an industry shaker.
Therefore, the product clearly
delivered on positioning and
on communication that created a trend. What followed
is history.
How did Liril lose the
plot?
Contrary to most views, I
do not believe that the positioning lost its relevance.
Freshness is as relevant a benefit in this category as it was
then. Those who have doubts can
study the Santoor positioning
across years. It has been consistent,
but has changed the expression.
There is a health aspect, where the
users believe they are using real herbs
to give them a healthy skin but, at the
same time, avoid a soap that does not
leave them feeling fresh and rejuvenated. Therefore, what the other
brands did was to deliver freshness in
the product, while promoting the
health or beauty benefits, thereby trying to make the freshness benefit a
hygiene requirement. If I had been the
brand manager in a soap company at
that point of time, I would have dreaded taking up the freshness position,
unless I
could
have
come
up with an ex- pression of freshness far superior to Liril, and that was
possibly the reason why most brands
stayed away from this positioning, given Liril’s strong hold. However, this is
where Liril lost the plot. Brand managers believed that this positioning,
once achieved, remained their property and they need not stake a claim on it
with consumers at regular intervals.
In short, Liril was complacent and the
future of a large brand — garnering 14
per cent market share at its peak —
was left to languish, with mere tinkering of its advertising. If we review the
advertising which followed, you can
almost read the brand manager’s brief.
Make the brand talk to the modern
woman, who is young, working
and has a devil-may-care attitude. The commercials looked
more like transcripts of the
brief and less like creative
pieces.
The product also lost its
distinctiveness; neither was
the fragrance modernised,
nor were the look and feel of
the soap. And the worst thing
you can do to a brand is to begin
extensions when it is going downIt also followed the classic act of
following one small mistake with a
big one to correct the previous mistake. Liril 2000 was the final nail in the
coffin. Really surprising that Hindustan Lever (as it was called earlier)
thought Liril could become a family
health soap. Which was like expecting
the carbolic Lifebuoy to become a
beauty soap.
Can Liril regain equity?
Yes it can and HUL should give it its
due and resurrect the brand. However, will the brand regain 14 per cent
market share? Unlikely. But that is because even the most expensive new
launches from giants like ITC have not
managed to gain even 3 per cent share
all-India. The market dynamics today
is very different from what it was
when Liril was launched. Despite that,
the residual equity of Liril, I believe,
still has enough strength to regain
more shares vis-à-vis a new brand, if
they were to re-launch.
So what should Liril do?
Go back to the drawing board with
the product. Create unique looks, not
available in the market. It has to be a
combination of transparency, shape
and colour. Modernise the fragrance,
at the same time retaining the lime
base, yet moving towards a finer fragrance. Add higher level product benefits, but talk of them only on the pack
and not in the communication.
Go back to the original positioning
of freshness in a way that is aspirational for the modern-day woman. This
brand should almost stand out as a
rebel in the market, where everybody
is trying to be logical and elaborate on
the ingredients.
Withdraw Liril 2000 simultaneously. The 1 per cent share it holds is
not worth the confusion in the market.
In short, the brand needs some
clear and non-incremental thinking
Bring Liril back on its freshness plank
New brand mantra can be ‘confident, vivacious and free-spirited’
SAMEER GUPTA
SAURABH KUMAR
L
iril’s repositioning failed because of a host of factors.
Gap in brand perception
and brand identity
The girl in the waterfall, the laa-lala jingle and the lemon slices all exude
exuberance, a free spirit, vivacity and
fun. Liril 2000 was repositioned as a
soap for soft and healthy skin. The
imagery of freshness that was at the
top of people’s minds for 25 years got
WINNER’S VIEW
lost and resulted in a total disconnect
between the brand perception and
identity.
Lack of differentiation and relevance to the customer
The brand persona has always been
centred on freshness and the concept
of lime. With time, the consumers’
preferences changed and the appeal of
freshness got generic. There were several soaps in the market which had
unique points of differentiation, like
CM
YK
skincare, medical, anti-ageing, glow
and so on.
Poor brand communication
The brand idea of Liril, freshness,
was poorly communicated in the new
ads or jingles. The later ads failed to
create a bathing experience in the
viewer’s mind. Once Liril commanded
a 14 per cent market share but a string
of failed strategies has eroded its leadership in recent years.
The accompanying matrix shows
that Liril has a high brand stature but
low relevance and differentiation,
leading to waning market share. Liril
has struggled to overcome what consumers already know about and expect from it.
What we would recommend are:
Brand Positioning
Liril should be repositioned upholding its USP of freshness combined
with a strong message of being gentle
on the skin, and only for women. Axe
is the popular male grooming product
line of HUL which thrives on attri-
butes like freshness, fragrance and virility. HUL doesn’t have any
female-focused products with these
attributes, suggesting a need for a similar female-centric product line.
The mismatch between brand perception and brand identity needs to be
fixed as Liril 2000 is positioned as a
skincare soap by HUL whereas it is
still perceived as a freshness soap. Liril should be positioned as it was originally, as a freshness soap but with a
strong communication of its increased
TFM content (Grade I soap, > 80 per
cent total fatty matter ) thereby making it gentle on the skin for women’s
use.
Line and category extensions
To revitalise Liril as a freshness
product line, brand managers need to
come up with line variants that appeal
to the women from the freshness angle . It should introduce never-beforelaunched, exotic and fresh fragrances
like Vineyard Mist, Cranberry Spice,
Champagne-Strawberry and the like.
Eventually, Liril needs to build category extensions which will include
shower gels, deodorant sprays and talcum powders designed for women,
like Axe does for men. Specific variants of products (soaps, deodorants,
talcum powder) can be created for different women consumers suiting their
lifestyles. For instance, Liril Sports for
the office-going, sports enthusiast and
tremely tough. In the last 20 years,
no other new brand, besides Dove,
has had significant success in this
category. It would, therefore, like to
revive the brand to be a significant
player again.
outdoor girl; Liril Diva for women
wanting to create a great first impression; Liril Classic for the confident and
independent woman.
Liril’s new array of products will
build a more powerful brand image in
the customers’ mind space, thereby
promoting sales of new product variants which will, in turn, enhance sales.
Brand Communication
Liril’s new brand mantra can be
‘Confident, vivacious and free-spirited’, along with the tagline ‘There she
goes!’, which strongly communicates
the brand message.
Liril has a strong brand equity and it
should revive the sizzling bath with
the original jingle that clicked with the
masses. Liril has to occupy the premium freshness soap mind space of the
customers once again. The core of its
brand promise is its ‘come alive with
freshness’ perception. Film stars like
Priyanka Chopra or Deepika Padukone should be roped in as brand ambassadors.
Boosting Sales
Apart from discounted bundles,
combo packs offering all products of
new Liril can be launched initially as
promotions to increase market share.
ASSESSMENT
Why IIM-B duo won
I
t was a surprisingly low scoring case, though the
number of responses was the highest among the four
cases we’ve published so far. Most of the entries relied
more on published analysis rather than offer their own
interpretation of what went wrong and what could be
done.
A lot of teams blindly used theoretical models
without understanding their real use. Also, what I
always look for is focus and clarity. Most of the entries
recommended too many things at the same time, or
their analysis and recommendation did not match.
The analysis by a number of teams from IIM
Bangalore was good.
Two teams were very close and the winners —
Sameer and Saurabh — pipped Sairam and Shivraj, also
from IIM-B, by just one mark. Their recommendations
were more focused. Shifia and Vignesh from IIT
Roorkee and Vijayalakshmi, the lone entry from Amrita
School of Management, Coimbatore, were also
impressive with their analysis.
Vishwadeep Kuila
THE NEXT CASE
Flight of the Falcon
A
lmost 60 teams, most of them made up of two
people, participated in the Liril case study contest.
Students from all the top IIMs and from B-schools as
varied as MICA, IIT Roorkee, IMT Ghaziabad, MDI
Gurgaon, ISB Hyderabad, SIES College of Management
Studies, Mumbai, and many more tried their hand at
this contest.
Thank you all, and congratulations to the winning
team from IIM Bangalore. The case analysis by each of
the other top teams has been posted online. Please have
a go at our next case on “The Flight of the Falcon!”
Available on our website at
(Sameer Gupta and Saurabh Kumar are
pursuing a Post Graduate Programme in
Management at Indian Institute of
Management Bangalore.)
TY-X