How many times we can reposition a brand?
It was recently in the news that Godrej Consumer Products is relaunching its Cinthol soap. The brand was introduced in the market in 1952 as the first deodorant soap. It was initially positioned as a “soap for men.” Later it was repositioned as a “family soap.” Now it seems that the company wants to again reposition it as a “soap for the youth.”
Lets understand why this exercise is being taken. It seems that in 1980, Cinthol soap was a leading brand with double digit market share. However, its present share is 2.5% of the Rs. 6000 crore soap market. By repositioning the brand, Godrej wants to regain its old glory.
The company is hiring who else but bollywood star Hrithik Roshan to reposition Cinthol brand including the Cinthol soap as “soap for the youth.”
After reading this news in Mint, I thought to myself as to how many times we can reposition a brand? I would think even once is too much unless you do it like “Seven-up” where the product was positioned in the wrong category, that is, “cola” vs “clear” drink. Seven-up was always a “clear” drink. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fall in Cinthol’s share started when they changed the positioning of the brand from “a man’s soap” to a “family soap.” If anybody has information when the positioning was changed the first time, please let us know.
How can you keep telling people “Hey now think of Cinthol as a man’s soap” and then later tell them “hey its for the family?” Changing the perception of the target audience becomes all the more difficult if it is a strong brand as Cinthol was.
According to me, the probability of this repositioning effort by Godrej being successful is dim. What will happen is as follows:
(a) Initially, there will be a spike in sales which you can call it the “Hrithik Roshan & heavy advertisement effect.”
(b) later, the sales will be at more or less the same level if not less. Why? Simple. Some family people will stop buying because it is now a “youth soap.” Some youths will buy because Hrithik Roshan is selling it as a “youth soap.” Most youths who have Cinthol being used in their homes as “family soap” will not buy it as they do not want to use what his/her family is using. I feel that there will be a lot of confusion.
Lets look at what Godrej can do?
(a) Let Cinthol be a “family soap.” Continue to strongly enhance the same positioning. Get a bollywood star couple to maybe enhance its current position.
(b) Introduce a different brand for the “youth” market. Now most of you will say, “Its a very expensive proposition to introduce a new brand.” That is true. But what we should consider is that is it more expensive to reposition the brand or introduce a new brand. From my perspective repositioning is more difficult because you are trying to convince people to change their opinion and perceptions. In fact, the budget that Godrej is going to spend on repositioning Cinthol can be spent more effectively on introducing a new brand.
So what do you guys think? Let me know.
Avinash Narula
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Interesting article, adding it to my favourites!
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