HLL to replace Rin Supreme bar with Surf Excel brand — Finally, Fair and Lovely for men

MAKING a late entry into categories already tapped by competition, HLL has finally decided to target men with a fairness cream and also extend its premium brand Surf Excel to a bar form with intentions of replacing the Rin Supreme bar.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Nitin Paranjpe, Vice-President, Laundry & Household, said, "There is a migration happening for the bar brands." Rin Supreme bar, the most premium bar in its category is being migrated as a Surf Excel bar. Considering Surf Excel is already a premium brand in powders, this move makes sense, according to industry observers.

While Rin is positioned on the whiteness platform, the communication exercise for the `new' surf Excel bar is expected to focus on both whiteness and stain removal, (earlier the USP of Surf Excel was stain removal), according to officials at HLL.

Lowe, the agency handling the Surf excel brand, has already released a campaign to highlight the `migration' exercise between the bar brands. In the commercial, a kid conveys the mixed news (bad news since Supreme bar is no longer going to be available and good news since Surf Excel bar is coming into the market). HLL officials said that the Rin Supreme bar is already a top-end bar and it helps when it is being migrated to an already premium brand such as Surf Excel.

In fact, HLL had mulled launching a Surf Excel bar for a while and its R&D department was actively exploring the possibility even before the Tide bar made its appearance. When P&G launched its Tide bar more than a year back, there was a strong possibility of HLL unveiling its Surf Excel bar to combat its nearest rival. In fact, P&G has deliberately pegged its Tide Bar (Rs 16.50 for 250 g), a notch lower than Rin Supreme bar (Rs 17 for 250 g) and both the brands are positioned on the `whitening' platform.

Besides, HLL re-launched the Rin brand of powders as Rin Advanced in the recent past (renaming its Rin Shakti brand) and discontinued with Rin Supreme powders, while its bars continued at the premium end of the `almost' stagnant bar category. Recently, it also introduced a jasmine variant under Rin Advanced and continues with a lesser priced bar under the same franchise.

Meanwhile, HLL has finally decided to enter the men's category under its largest selling skincare brand - Fair & Lovely. Mr Ashok Venkatramani, VP, Skincare, said, "We have a new brand of men's cream and are presently test-marketing the product in the Southern markets." Again, HLL is entering the men's fairness cream category at a time when players such as Emami (Fair and Handsome) and Garnier have already forayed into the market.

Explaining the strategy behind HLL's late entry, an FMCG analyst says, "HLL does not care if it comes in early or late. Its research for any brand is always a two-year process and after launching the brand, it decides to spend much more than competition just to capture the market."

Brand Update : Rin and Surf Excel

2006 saw a unique marketing move from HLL. Rin Supreme bar is being migrated to Surf Excel. Although the decision is made in 2006 , the ads are being aired more frequently in 2007 ( I have only recently noticed this after one of my students pointed out this ).I was wondering why HLL is messing up their successful detergent brand like Rin?Indian Detergent market is valued at around 5100 crore ($1.2 bn).Detergent bar market makes up for 43% of this market .HLL commands 38% of the fabric wash market.The latest move comes in the wake of the high profile launch of Tide detergent bar. Tide and Ariel always created problems for Surf and Rin. The migration of Rin Supreme bar to Surf Excel bar is aimed at countering Tide.While Rin is heavily positioned on th whiteness platform and Surf Excel on the Stain Removal platform, the new Surf Excel detergent bar is aimed to take both these attributes.The ad is already on air featuring kids conveying " Good News and Bad news" to their mothers.

It is true that the detergent bar market is important for HLL because in India, homemakers use a combination of bar,detergent and whiteners on their clothes. Hence any move from competitors should be seriously dealt with. But this migration initially did not make sense with me. Why spent money migrating brands? Does HLL gain by migrating Rin to Surf excel?

But I feel that the logic behind the migration is to protect Rin and its USP of whiteness .It is true that Rin supreme can counter Tide bar because both have whiteness positioning. Had HLL used Rin to counter any competition other than Tide, it will have to focus on the Whiteness Platform alone and any additional attribute may affect the parent Rin detergent powder brand. While having Surf Excel detergent bar will help HLL to counter competition not only from Tide but other competitors since Surf is known for its stain removal property. There will not be any dilution in the equity adding attribute of whiteness to Surf unlike Rin. My conclusion is Surf Excel has the ability to be a generalist than Rin.( MyView).Is it good news or bad news?