Advertising Mgt.

Assignment

Santoor on a Roll
Positioning: Santoor was launched in 1985 as an ordinary soap with sandalwood and turmeric as
its main ingredients. The brand was initially test marketed in Bangalore and encouraged by the
positive response, the brand became national a year after. The brand was positioned as the
(beauty + skin care) at a reasonable price and the brand derived strength from the efficacy of the
ingredients. The brand derived the name from combining Sandal + Turmeric.

Although the brand became popular, the company was not satisfied with the results. The
customers were not buying the ingredient story: says M.G. Parameswaran in his book on Brands:
FCB Ulka case studies. The research suggested that customers are not correlating the brand with
skin care and beauty. Thus started the brain storming on getting the ‘WOW’ factor, to build the
brand. A promotional strategy was decided to make the campaign ‘benefit based advertising
rooted in the ingredients’. The wow factor came in the form of the new positioning ‘For Younger
Looking Skin’.

The positioning came from the consumer insight that ultimately the customers look for a
younger skin which is another smart way of defining beauty. The focus on ‘Younger Skin’ also
acts as a powerful differentiator because other brands were focusing on ‘beautiful skin’ or
‘looking beautiful’. Communicating the ‘Younger Skin’ concept began using ‘Mistaken Identity’
theme. The brand has consistently developed this theme over these two decades of its existence.

Most of the ads showed spinsters in their campaigns while for Santoor, the protagonist
were Mothers. But showing ‘Mother’ as the protagonist had its issue. The customers felt that
since this brand is meant for adults, it will not be soft on skin. This made the company to change
the size texture and the shape of the product. The brand also extended itself to a range of beauty
products and to talc. Now Santoor has facewash, talc, soap and fairness cream.
2006 saw a big change in the marketing strategy for Santoor. The campaigns showed Saif Ali
Khan (in North) and Madhavan (south) in the TVCs. The TVC's shows these celebrities along
with the Mother and child in the usual mistaken identity theme. Many were asking whether the
brand is going to appeal to males also.

The concept has been used before by Santoor and often enough so that the TVC becomes
predictable. The USP of making the user look younger than their years has been employed since
2005, with their ‘Umar Ka Pata Hi Nahi Lagta’ campaign. While this line has worked for the
brand back then, in this hyperaesthetic age, with beauty clinics in every neighbourhood, and
lunchtime botox shots and fillers, this does seem rather gratuitous. The new campaign targets the
middle class woman, located in urban India, who is a professional with children and also wants
to look her best with minimal fuss.

The talking point about Santoor is the positioning. For over the years, the brand has been
talking about the concept of ‘For a Younger Looking Skin’. All the campaigns were reinforcing
that message consistently and powerfully. When the brand moved into talcum powder, it had to
deviate from ‘younger looking’ to ‘freshness’. In the case of deo also, the brand is talking about
freshness.

Source Factor Model for Santoor: As customers have a notion that the soap (product
category) are generally not that suitable for skin so the company (Wipro) tried to harness the
benefit by building perception of target audience that it has Turmeric & Sandal as its ingredients
but already the target market had its inclination towards other soaps that were harvesting their
position that they had built on the basis of ingredients such soaps included Moti, Hamam, Margo,
etc. So after market research Wipro & FCB Ulka (the advertising agency, that is associated with
the brand Santoor, right from the day 1) realized that only ingredients of the soap won’t suffice
to have the right kind of notions in the mind of target audience so they changed their course of
action to reap out the desired results.

They knew that the best way to drive the target audience towards the product is to
increase a sense of curiousity that could be achieved by analyzing their behavioral aspect. On
analyzing behavioral aspect it was identified such objectives could be achieved by Wipro & FCB
Ulka only on the basis of positioning done on the basis of ‘benefits of the ingredients of the soap’
and this could be generated in the Indian market with the theme of ‘Mistaken Identity’ as the
Indian women are very particular about their skin.

This campaign over the period of three decades made Santoor number 1 in south India
and number 2 in across India after Lux (HUL) in personal care segment. This campaign helped
Santoor distinguish itself from other existing products viz. Margo, Hamam, Lifebuoy, etc. and
thus slowly it reached number 3 in across Indian market (as per the case study given) and now it
has acquired number 2 position in the Indian market (current status based on market research
done by various agencies). Here company identified purchase points of their product (established
retailers and local vendors both) and the role that had been played by these purchase points in
increasing influence on customers and building the long term brand patronage by them. Thus
both the affective and cognitive component has played a great role in influencing the customers
as well as organization in order to design its copy source.

Since the desire in the Indian women to look young even at matured age, had been
identified by the Wipro and FCB Ulka; they began planning their copy source accordingly. Since
both the organization (sponsor/Wipro) and advertising agency were working in close proximity
both had its objectives as well as communication plan clear.

So for communication they had to identify endorser and they had time and again very
cleverly used celebrities and other models as its endorsers. They had used Simon Singh (as the
mother and endorser) as she could easily get into the heart and mind of Indian females and help
sponsor achieve its target. Saif Ali Khan and R. Madhvan have also been used with particular
objective as everyone knew that Madhvan was superhero for south Indians and Saif was popular
among north Indians so they used the tactic of region based advertising which was not planned
by anyone else in those days (as now-a-days such strategies are being used by Parle for its
various products).

The advertisement uses a case of ‘mistaken identity’ to drive home the claim that the
soap could make a person look younger. The ad shows a young mother in an aerobics class who
is mistaken for a college student. It then moves on to describe the ingredients and the
corresponding benefits. The ad struck the required balance between benefits and ingredients to
entice new customers while not alienating existing users. The campaign rated highly on reach
(both urban and rural), frequency and impact. The focus was on repeats of the ads and not on a
star-ambassador to carry the brand. Also, this is a rare example in which the entire brand
building exercise was without a sales force, any technological innovations and mega media
budgets.

In order to authenticate their claim they sponsor (Wipro) used the snapshot of Simon
Singh (the endorser) and the girl (the girl who played her daughter’s role in the advertisement
campaign) in the background of wrapper of the soap. The media used was basically electronic
media (television) as it was able to serve the purpose of heavy advertisement to generate a brand
recall in the mind of target audience.

Constant exposure of the target audience to the brand through electronic media, thereafter
other channels helped in framing the attitude of the target audience build a positive behavior
towards the brand called ‘Santoor’, this has resulted in pursuing the target audience to ask for
Santoor as a generic name among women when it comes to sandal and turmeric soap.

The end resulted has been identified as the target audience are relating and responding to
the advertising campaigns over the year. This could be easily analyzed in terms of market share
occupied by ‘Santoor’ in south Indian market (number 1) and across Indian market (number 2
after Lux of HUL). The strategy used for its soap is now also being followed in talc and deo
segment with a slight difference at point of focus i.e. focus has shifted from ‘For Young Looking
Skin’ to ‘Freshness’.
Recommendations: If Santoor aspire to be an umbrella brand, it may have to dilute or change
the core brand positioning of ‘Younger looking skin’ and include brand value like Freshness.
This is relevant for products like Deo and Talc and this seems that Santoor has started doing so.
For other products like facewash or creams, the classic positioning will work for the brand.

Another factor is that Santoor soap derives its strength from Turmeric and Sandal. The
brand even derives the name from these two ingredients. The positioning also derives strength
from these two ingredients as well as re-gain the same and thus remain competitive over the
period of years. Now when the brand expands its product portfolio, it has to look beyond these
two ingredients. Hence if at all the brand wants to expand its horizon, it may have to find other
sources of strength. Only then it would be able to metamorphise as a family brand as Vaseline,
Lakme & Pond’s did it successfully.

Along with leveraging the uniqueness of the product it should also strengthen its
advertising campaign using social media (as it is being used by ‘Sure deodorant’, ‘Axe
deodorant’, etc.) for marketing and promoting various product categories under the brand name
of ‘Santoor’. Now since India as a market provides promising opportunity in the personal care
segment ‘Santoor’ won’t like to lose out to other players. With the expectation of competition
getting tougher over the period of years the company can reap major benefits with minute
changes in the product advertising.

Development of e-zines/ cyberzines of ‘Santoor’ as a brand that could be catering to both

urban males and females could prove of utmost importance from marketing and advertising
perspective. Article marketing as an approach could also be used by ‘Santoor’ (routing its plan
through various newspapers both English and hindi news-daily, magazines as ‘Santoor’ used to
use ‘Grihshobha’ and ‘Manorma’ once about 8-10 years back, blogs, etc.) for advertising in
which it (Santoor) could highlight all its products in the personal care segment vis-à-vis the soap
category.

Santoor needs to develop an advertising campaign with mixture of keeping with the
times, humor and understanding the need of the hour of the people. It could develop hoardings as
a thing of attraction in India. It can develop a totally integrated brand message, optimize the very
brand signal in such a way that the brand becomes instantly recognizable could be one of the
advertising approach used by the ‘Santoor’.