Calcutta, June 8: Look, Mom! there's a new bird on the bottle! Next time you pick up the groceries, stop for a minute and look at the Robin Blue liquid. The bird on the twig is gone, replaced by a Robin with outstretched wings of colour.After decades, Reckitt & Colman's Robin brand of fabric whiteners has got a new look, devised by international brand strategist Shombit Sengupta. Based on elaborate research in rural India, the heartland of Robin users, the Paris-based Sengupta has tried to create a new status for the brand which lacked "innovativeness".
Sengupta, chairman of Paris-based Shining Strategic Identity, told The Financial Express during a visit to Calcutta last weekend that the new brand strategy was built on the concept of `wings of purity' with `laundry dazzler' as the positioning platform. The word `dazzling' provided optimum benefit.
Reckitt officials said the new design is being tested in the market and will be launched soon on the back of a national campaign crafted by McCann Ericsson.He refused to divulge the ad spend. A senior official said Sengupta was brought in during 1997 to "contemporise" the brand. He said the national entry of rival Ujala had stirred up the fabric-whitener market-the competition till then had consisted of mainly Reckitt versus a host of small players.
``The brand was stagnating as better quality detergents began offering the complete package,'' the official said. ``Around that time, Ujala, which is actually not a very new brand, went national.''
He denied that the re-design had anything to do with the recent court battles between Reckitt and Jyothi Laboratories, manufacturers of Ujala, in which Reckitt had taken umbrage at Jyothi's remarks about ``blue''. Ujala is a violet-coloured fabric-whitening liquid.
At present, Robin and Ujala each have around 25 per cent of the Rs 250 crore whitener market, the Reckitt official said. Robin is especially strong in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Mumbai-Maharashtra. Ujala, he said, was launched in1986 in Kerala and expanded in the south before going national last year.
According to Sengupta, the main problem with the Robin brand was that it had become very old-fashioned. ``It lacked visibility, readability and proximity in spite of its strong brand equity. Although blue as a colour was synonymous with Robin, the brand equity was nearly dormant. This gave a scope to newcomers to become strong enough to transform the value of blue to another colour, and offer a lower price to change the market trend,'' he said.
``Moreover, the rural market, which happens to be the main strength of the product, was totally neglected,'' he added.
Explaining the industry conditions, Sengupta said the fragmented laundry whitener market has many small manufacturers selling their products at low prices. Besides, in India, doing the laundry is not considered a chore unlike in the West. For Indians, it is a more holistic relationship as the laundry has to be done everyday, Sengupta said.
``The concept of a unifieddetergent in India would always be a problem due to the climate, which is why products like Robin would always be a necessity in the marketplace. Unfortunately, Robin, which was a pioneer in the industry, did not dynamise the performance or its innovation in the market. So the market shifted towards a basic non-branded product,'' said Sengupta.Sengupta's research threw up some interesting perceptions about the old brand and pointers for the new:
The Robin brand is an unadulterated and harmless laundry additive. Stressing the after-wash cycle helped in clarifying the user attitude. The brand can highlight the well-being of the family because of its gentleness. The quality of optical brightner had to be shown as a tangible benefit. The small bird in the old Robin design has a strong equity as a trademark but not as an action-packed symbol. The old brand lacked innovativeness. Hence the need for a new brand status and innovativeness.The new concept, built on the words`Wings of Purity', centres around the logo and the bird -- the two prominent features identifying the brand.
According to Sengupta, the logo is communicative of dynamism and movement along with purity.
The new bird design, indicative of progress, refers to purity for all garments coupled with lightness and brightness for both white and coloured garments. Moreover, it is an active symbol as well.
In totality, the new brand unit communicates a quality for whites and for colours and also adds a benefit of purity and brightness to the brand, explains Sengupta.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Printer-friendly page
