Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 10, 2002 |
|
|
|
|
|
Marketing
-
Advertising CavinKare changes tack to challenge HLL strategy Ratna Bhushan
NEW DELHI, July 9 THE latest slugfest on the television advertising front has unfolded, and it is to do with the Rs 700-crore fairness cream market. The Chennai-based CavinKare Ltd has yet again drawn the battlelines with long-time rival Hindustan Lever on the advertising front for its fairness cream brand. The latest television commercial for Fairever, CavinKare's fairness cream brand, takes a dig at HLL's Fair & Lovely ad. Fairever's current ad has a father-daughter duo as the protagonists, with the father shown encouraging the daughter to be an achiever irrespective of her complexion. Fair & Lovely has been airing an ad film where the father is shown resenting his daughter because of her inability to acquire a job owing to her dark complexion. While the attempt to take on Fair & Lovely's communication plank is obvious, CavinKare maintains that the objective of its new commercial is not to take a dig at Fair & Lovely but to "reinforce Fairever's positioning". "We have noticed attempts by Fair & Lovely to blur our positioning by changing its communication platform from `wanting to get married' to `achievement' and supporting this with high media spends. Since we don't have the spend capacity to match HLL, a tactical way for us to respond is to reinforce our brand positioning," a CavinKare official said. According to CavinKare, it is Fairever's `challenger' positioning that helped the brand make a dent in Fair & Lovely's market share. Interestingly, this is not the first time HLL and CavinKare have warred over fairness creams. While Fair & Lovely is the market leader among fairness creams, Fairever's current market share is 12.7 per cent. According to the CavinKare official, this commercial is expected to be aired till the time the company's `objective' is achieved. Business Line's attempts to get a reaction from HLL on the issue, meanwhile, did not yield any response. According to industry estimates, growth rate in the fairness cream market slowed down to three per cent last year, against 8-10 per cent earlier. This probably explains why players are turning aggressive in pushing their respective brands. Apart from HLL and CavinKare, other significant players in the fairness cream market include Godrej Consumer Products and Emami.
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | Home |
Copyright © 2002, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|