SUPERBRANDS 2012

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cinthol.com

CINTHOL

ranked as the 3rd most trusted brand in the ET Brand Equity Study of 2011.

History
In the early 1900s, Ardeshir Godrej, a lawyer steeped in principles and ideology a man passionately committed to delivering India from colonial rule made a decisive contribution. He created India's first toilet soap from indigenously available vegetable oils instead of imported animal fats. The mantle passed on to his nephew, Dr. Burjor Godrej, a mechanical engineer, with a prestigious doctorate in technical chemistry. He pioneered manufacturing soap with germ-killing ingredients. Cinthol Deodorant & Complexion soap was born on Independence Day in 1952. Enriched with a unique Fougere perfume the soap received an extraordinary welcome. Over the first three decades, the brand monopolised the platform of freedom from body odour. In 1986, in an attempt to modernise the image, New Cinthol was launched with fresh packaging, a new shape and novel advertising, using celebrities like Vinod Khanna and Imran Khan. But times were slowly changing and consumers were beginning to seek other benefits. The first major attempt by Cinthol to recast itself came in 1989 when in a bid to strengthen its freshness image the company introduced Cinthol Lime. The brand grabbed 8% market share in six months. Three years later a new modern, fragrance was launched in the form of Cinthol Cologne.

It's astonishing that a product launched 60 years ago should remain unchanged through six decades. Even more astonishing is the fact that when Godrej withdrew it in 1986 the markets responded adversely and Cinthol was brought back colour, shape, perfume, packaging et al. Today, this powerful brand has several variants and several brand extensions but a common strategy it has never veered away from. Cinthol users always symbolise poise and self belief. In advertising parlance, they are confidence personified.
course, the markets display a unique elasticity with a very large part of the top-end of the population happy to experiment with new variants. Indeed, this is a trend that is commonly seen in other consumer products as well, leading to the unmistakable conclusion that brand loyalty is becoming harder to achieve. Despite experimentation much of the panIndia market is deeply divided and tradition bound. Consumers in the North generally prefer floral fragrances with pink as the colour of choice. Lime and citrus soaps, too, have a marked preference here. The underlying premise is that lime is refreshing and helps balance the heat and humidity prevalent in this part of the country. The West exhibits preferences for strong fragrances with harsher profiles compared to the North. Floral fragrances, particularly rose, which are positioned on the beauty platform are favoured here. The South shows a marked skew towards herbal profiles with sandal as the fragrance of ACNielsen, RSA 2012).

Market
Soap is today so omnipresent that we assume that it has been in existence for time immemorial. The truth is that toilet soap, as we know it, didn't make an appearance till the last decades of the 1800s; in fact, long after other taken-for-granted things such as the telephone, the electric bulb, automobiles and jeans had. Today, the soap market in India is a deeply penetrated one with scores of brands vying for attention from crammed shelves and a range of variants several times that number. There are now soaps that fulfil every conceivable need from disinfecting to creating a radiant, blemishfree skin and everything in between. That is just as well. For the Indian market spanning 1200 million people, more than 4500 towns and cities and in excess of 580,000 villages must cut through several price points, fragrances and end results to satisfy everyone. Despite a penetration of 88.60% (Source:

Achievements
In a market where choices abound and experimenting with new brands and variants is an accepted norm, to find a multi-million strong group of loyalists is very satisfying. Cinthol, paradoxically, has the unique distinction of being at once one of the oldest soap brands in India

Product
Cinthol has three distinct variants. Cinthol Deodorant & Complexion soap continues to operate in the healthy skin category. The soap offers numerous do-good benefits like total and complete skin protection. Cinthol Fresh is a muscular player in the freshness grouping. The lime variant has an active lime formula that provides long-lasting fragrance. The period between 1993 and 1995 was one of great activity. Cinthol accomplished a branding overhaul by bringing three variants under its international umbrella Cinthol International Spice, Cinthol International Lime and Cinthol International Cologne. Shah Rukh Khan became the brand's new icon. His personality was flawlessly integral to the brand's new platform: revitalising and re-energising. Cinthol Fresh was the first popular segment lime soap. It was a runaway success and was redefined as a family soap with the famous Tan Taaza, Man Taaza (fresh body, fresh mind) campaign in 2000. Cinthol Deo Soap, with the tagline Get Ready Get Close, hit the market in 2004. It addressed the need for effective body odour removal through the unique propositioning of a deodorant in soap. Cinthol extended this footprint into a deodorant talc and spray. The following year, with the addition of Cinthol Sport, the brand had reinforced its offering, strengthening it later with Cinthol Deo Musk in an exotic woody-musky fragrance.

extend the appeal of the mother brand and has offered consumers the freedom of choice. Cinthol's new products are the result of extensive studies in the behaviour patterns of Indian buyers. The research shows that increasingly, upwardly mobile consumers in urban India seek non-stop action in their lives. The communications for the brand, therefore, syncs in with his aspirations and endeavours to complete the dreams he has.

Promotion
At Cinthol, the communications process starts with a strategy that dove tails into the research conclusions. Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan was an easy enough choice. His boundless energy, macho image and passion to excel perfectly embodied Cinthol's brand ethos of invigorating products for people, who believe in an active life. The Cinthol 'Don't Stop' campaign featuring Hrithik captured the essence of this emerging Indian. The commercial featured Hrithik performing a series of high adrenaline stunts and participating in action-packed sports. From kayaking to bungee jumping, mountain climbing to cliff diving; this highly successful brand communication complemented Hrithik's macho and sporty image and invited viewers to emulate his Don't Stop adventurous lifestyle.

Things you didnt know about

Cinthol
Celebrities like Vinod Khanna, Imran Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Arvind Swami, John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan and Akshaye Khanna have all endorsed Cinthol The name Godrej is derived from Guderz an important tribe in Iran Cinthol Deo & Complexion soap has remained unchanged in design, perfume, shape and packaging since its launch in 1952. Briefly replaced in 1986 it was brought back to its original form in the face of popular demand All variants of Cinthol soap are grade 1 as classified by the Bureau of Indian Standards When Cinthol sponsored the Supermodel Contest in 1996 it catapulted Bipasha Basu into limelight and into stardom

Soap Industry of India) the per capita consumption is poor. At 460 grams per annum it compares unfavourably with analogous economies such as Brazil, which notches up 1100 grams. Toilet soaps are marketed through 6.90 million retail stores of which 4.70 million are in rural areas, reaching 70% of India's population but selling only 45% of its volume (Source: Soap Industry of India). Obviously, the market offers exciting possibilities. Over the years, the transformation in the soap market has been immense. When first introduced in India at the end of the 19th century, all soaps were positioned as cleansers and dirt removers. However, as the markets developed, the reasons for buying soap also evolved. Several brands appeared with the promise of more than just cleansing. Skin care became an important raison d'tre. Today, of
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choice. Despite being the most traditional of all Indian zones, the South shows a promiscuous inclination when experimenting with new brands. Perhaps, this explains why most fast moving consumer goods are first test launched here. The East is the smallest soap market and no preferential biases are measured here (Source: Consumer Preferences International Flavours and Fragrances, 2009). In this exceedingly complex, severe and aggressive market, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) occupies a place of enormous fulfilment. The company directs the fortunes of its flagship brand, Cinthol. So successful has this effort been that Cinthol continues to consolidate its market position and control a consumer base of more than 17 million users (Source: IRS 2011). Today, nearly 70 years after launch, Cinthol is a C329 crore (US$ 59.90 million) brand (Source:

as well as one of its most youthful. The brand has been able to inject this magic into marketing by not being afraid to try new things. In its earliest years when the entire world was using soaps made from animal fats, Godrej discarded that formula and launched a soap using vegetable oils. The audacity of this act gave successive generations of Cinthol marketers the courage to back their convictions. This finds illustration in the daring Cinthol showed when it chose to combine two product benefits in a single soap. Thus, when convention dictated that soap should either offer deodorancy or skin care as a benefit, it chose to go against the rule by launching a variant that offered both. Today, Cinthol Deodorant & Complexion Soap has not just been accepted by consumers but is also recommended by doctors. It has been

Brand Values
Ever since its introduction in 1952, Cinthol has been the ideal embodiment of the expression 'confidence personified'. Over these six decades, all the campaigns it has launched for different variants have captured the subtle shifts that the market has registered. But not once has the brand strayed away from its quintessence of poise and self-belief traits that cut across the aspirations of both sexes. To keep its hand on the pulse of the market, the company's specialised research team closely monitors consumer behaviour, changing attitudes and tweaks marketing and product strategies to suit up-and-coming needs. It cannot, then, surprise anyone that the brand resonates with an active, effervescent and bouncy personality. This has been its calling card for all its 60 years.

Recent Developments
Some years ago Cinthol unleashed a new property: 24-hour Confidence. This found expression in a new, improved and extended range of soaps, talcs and deodorants. The deodorant range is available in formats such as Classic, Cologne, Sport, Musk, Unleash and Rainstorm. Each of these sub-brands has helped

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