Thursday, December 27, 2007

Do you buy Hindustan Unilever Ltd.?

Do you like the logo? Oh, you do! These days it appears at the end of every TVC of every brand that Hindustan Unilever Ltd markets here in India. Why? Earlier it didn't happen. Perhaps it did. It was HLL (Hindustan Lever Ltd.) then. The logo was different too.

Well, whom is this transition meant for? End consumers or internal employees or HUL's business partners? Going by the TV ads, it does seem that it is meant for consumers? But the first question is, do consumers care? No. Consumers care about Fair & Lovely or Lifebuoy or Lux or Dove because they buy Fair & Lovely or Lifebuoy or Lux or Dove. They care about the products which carry these brands. For them, the brand is the company. They aren't bothered about whether the brand comes from HLL, HUL or P&G.

The management at HUL should've asked what do the consumers buy? If they think it's HUL that consumers buy, then they are sadly mistaken. HUL is for internal employees or perhaps business partners, if there's any implication of the change on them.

Showing HUL to the masses so prominently might only be taken indifferently or at best as a general knowledge/trivia input - simply academic. But on the negative side, it might leave the consumers perplexed and at worst, it might dilute the impact of the brands in question by distracting the former when it's not needed. There's no point in making the corporate brand all pervasive among the consumers when the individual brands are doing their trick. For consumers, individual brand is the corporate or the company or whatever. Leave it that way and focus on building individual brands.

No comments:

Post a Comment