While Shout is an aerosol meant for stain-removing services, Pledge is a furniture polish aerosol. Goddard's comes in a silver polish lotion form and cloth form in addition to a gold and platinum jewellery cleaning kit. These products are being imported into the country to cater to a market which is still nascent.

Headquartered in Pune, Lever Johnson is in the business of manufacturing and marketing core category household care products in India. The products are: Raid range of insect control products, Domex range of household cleaners and Glade range of air freshners. Domex was the first product to be launched by the JV company about three years back. In this respect, the company competes with other multinationals such as Reckitt & Colman and Sara Lee India.

However, unlike Raid, Glade and Domex being manufactured in India, Shout, Pledge and Goddard are being imported. Says a spokesperson of Lever Johnson: ``In addition to these core products (Raid, Domex and Glade), Lever Johnson also has access to a vast portfolio of products successfully marketed by SC Johnson in more than 40 countries around the world. Some of these product categories represent markets in India, which are at very nascent stages of growth and would not normally justify local manufacturing of products to cater to these categories.''

The spokesperson added that as the import policy of the government is progressively allowing Indian consumers to get access to international products, it is the company's intention to bring in, albeit on a small scale, imported products from the SC Johnson worldwide portfolio to check market interest and potential in India.

Shout, Pledge and Goddard's have been launched in select stores in Mumbai. These are priced at Rs 170 for a Pledge container, Rs 260 for Goddard's silver polish cloth, Rs 320 for 250 ml Goddard's Gold & Platinum jewellery cleaner, Rs 270 for a Shout stain remover and Rs 145 for 125 ml Goddard's silver polish. The company says that based on the interest generated in the Mumbai market, it plans to further take decisions on rolling out to more cities; and bringing in additional products to this portfolio. ``By this endeavour, we will continue to give Indian consumers an opportunity to use some of the internationally quality products manufactured by SC Johnson worldwide,'' says the spokesperson.

Industry observers feel that the products in question will be able to create a new branded category in the household care market since such products currently exist only in the unbranded and unorganised form.