MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Assignment - II

LIRIL STORY

Submitted By

Sahitya K

Roll No: _______

Liril was a popular soap brand sold, to a large degree, in India, and Asia, as well as a few places
in Europe. The soap is currently manufactured by Hindustan Lever Limited in India. Most of
their ads are woman bathing in rains or under a waterfall. The ad with its famous jingle “la-i-ra-
li-ra” ran for 25 years since 1975 and single-handedly catapulted Liril to one of the top-selling
soaps with a 14 per cent market share.

The first model for Liril, Karen Lunel made sure that Liril caught the nation’s imagination with
her bathing in the Kodaikanal Waterfalls with Liril. The waterfall, the bikini and the jingle
continued, though Karen Lunel, who had by then become an icon for the brand, was replaced by
an assortment of stars such as Preity Zinta and Deepika Padukone. But the new ads were seen to
be merely an echo of the original film. So the 'Liril girls’ finally bowed out in July the year 2009
as the freshness soap’s market share plummeted to just 1.3 per cent.

Since rebranding was the desperate need of the hour to revive the old magic, Liril became Liril
2000  and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) launched a new campaign that stresses family intimacy and
speaks about 2000 sensitive points in the human body that the soap refreshes and rejuvenates.

An HUL spokesperson says the “emotional space” being addressed by the Liril of the seventies
was no longer relevant to the Liril consumers (urban women in the higher socio-economic class)
of today.

The soap now has a different packaging – the earlier tight-wrapped cover has been replaced by a
box-type packing and the light green colour has given way to a darker shade and gloss finish. Ad
gurus say it was high time that Liril did something different to survive. The waterfall and the
bikini served their purpose at a time when women’s liberation was taking wings. The Liril girls
had then broken new grounds in the sense that they took bathing out of the bathroom and turned
it into a fantasy. But that became irrelevant in today’s Facebook and FTV era.

In the interim, HUL tried its luck by launching a few variants like Liril Orange, Icy mint, etc,
which didn’t quite pick up.The company also briefly moved the account to McCann in 2007. It
came back to Lowe Lintas early this year. Lowe offered the ‘relaunch’ cure.

The advertising has thus gone off from celebrating “individualistic pleasure” to “family
intimacy”. But Joseph George, executive director, Lowe Lintas denies any brand confusion: “If
the new proposition is relevant and compelling, people will accept it. Having said that, it is true
that “freshness” is still at the core of the new proposition,” George says. The agency says the
target audience remains same. “Liril was never targeted at the youth; it was a brand that had a
youthful imagery. In order to broadbase our appeal, we are now talking to the entire family.
However, we have retained the youthful imagery of the brand and have  broadbased the appeal to
the entire family.”

The rebranding is being seen to address the loss of market share. With  time, the choices
available to customers have increased. Liril had started losing market share, whereas other soaps
like Lux and Lifebuoy have increased/maintained their shares consistently. HUL has taken the
Liril girls out of its brand image in order to improve the worsening scenario.Besides refreshing
the brand, the repositioning makes sense from the portfolio management perspective, too. With
Dove at the super-premium end, Lifebuoy at mass-plus and Lux at mass price points, it is
obviously a conscious decision to reposition Liril to target the premium soaps segment.

However, experts like Bijoor think Liril has now taken the safe route of building an intimate
bond within marriages. But the new strategy of positioning the brand as being clean, fresh and
intimate with the family can also be perceived by the market as boring routine.

Link to the first ad of Liril

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxSOLjDRrW8&feature=related

Links to other Liril Ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lMpyvE2QYw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKxToLqv90s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpwIdFGs0n0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgjfLyeLsYg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzdWQBedqgU&feature=related