bringing down brand borolin - economic times
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How an age-old brand is brought down....how a new company/product cashes in on changing mindset of people...read on to find it.TRANSCRIPT
2/11/15 Bringing down brand Borolin - Economic Times
articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2003-07-15/news/27515818_1_harsh-agarwal-brand-emami-industries 1/3
Bringing down brand BorolinJul 15, 2003, 02.41am IST
"I shall retell some stories," he tells her, "the ones your mother told me, even those that she told not in
words, but in gestures and glances. Like that of the black-and-yellow Boroline Cream banners catching the
wind on Durga Puja day....."
— From 'The Blue Bedspread', Raj Kamal Jha.
It came to be a part of a generation's collective nostalgia so much so that we hardly noticed when it slipped
into modern Indian English literature. But today if you ask a twenty something about Boroline, don't be
surprised if all you get is a shrug.
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For Brand Boroline, 'stickiness' has an element of irony. It was its stickiness that a clever competitor used to
dissuade customers away from the brand. That was 20 years ago, when BoroPlus, from house of Emami,
stormed the market and changed the rules of the games, forever.
BoroPlus used the white and lavender colour packs as a first step in differentiation. The second and more
fundamental difference was "lightness" of the cream. "Gudiya rani badi sayani.." the commercial highlighted
the word plus to value — those were early days of consumer promotion. Last but not the least, was Emami's
decision to question the plank of "antiseptic cream" that Boroline adhered to so strongly.
Aspersions over the 'antiseptic' attribute of the brand stuck. So much so that Boroline lost out being
categorised as a medicinal product and instead got bracketed as a cosmetic one. Concessional levies and
taxes built into the pricing of the product too were lost once Boroline started to be treated as any other
cosmetic product.
"Yet Boroline's owners GD Pharmaceuticals did not respond to any competition seriously in the mid '80s.
There also was a shortage of stock. This almost amounts to an arrogance on part of an FMCG company,"
Harsh Agarwal, director, Emami Industries, points out.
Call it arrogance, complacency, conservativeness or whatever, repeated attempts to get in touch with anyone
from the Dutta family that controls GD Pharmaceuticals elicited the same reply: "the management does not
give interviews, information or meets anyone. This is for security reasons."
In days when TRPs were unheard off and radio waves ruled supreme, Boroliner Sansar on Vividh Bharati on
Sundays used to vie with such hit programmes as Bornvita Quiz Contest and Musical Band Box. If you ever
need an example of residual equity, chances are you won't come across a better one than Boroline. There
hasn't been a fresh ad in more than five years now. Neither have there been any reminder ads to retain the
emotional equity of the brand. Yet it lingers on...
"A look into its user base could explain part of this," said Ranjan Das, professor of strategic management,
IIM (C). Its users were either hardcore brand loyalists or just borderline ones.
"It is this second category which deserted the brand in droves when a supposedly better alternative came
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2/11/15 Bringing down brand Borolin - Economic Times
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along, as there were no reminder ads to retain them. And, with
no enrichment of the category in terms of attracting younger users, the brand started losing market share
rapidly," Mr Das added.
According to AC Nielsen ORG-MARG, from a high 90% market share in '86, Boroline has slipped to 22%
with BoroPlus way ahead at 56%.
Low on cosmetic and aspirational appeal even among users, the main complaint against Boroline was its
"greasy". Low priced, an ideal value-for-money family product.
Ad professional Ram Ray who has worked on the brand for almost twenty years said the main challenge was
to convert it from an also advertised to a endearing brand. In the decade of the '80s brand communication was
devoted to doing that. This manifested itself through its connection with Durga Puja, Bengal's biggest festival.
This despite the ugliest of packaging since its owners resisted every effort at redesigning the pack.
Suggestions like adding dashes of white to the bottle-green pack were brushed aside. As a one-product
company it did not want to take any risks.
In the mid-'90s, a new management led by the grandson of the original promoter felt ads were no longer
required to communicate the brand attributes. This led to progressive decline of the brand that was once used
by skiers since it prevented the skin from cracking in high altitude slopes.
Yet despite its fall from the
high altar of a power brand, Boroline does retain a residual equity in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
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2/11/15 Bringing down brand Borolin - Economic Times
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