RIN WASHING POWDER

I know that I am too late to comment on this issue, and that the whole issue is being debated heavily already in the blogging world, but it is something that I cannot resist myself from blogging about. And for those of you who still have no idea what is going on, Rin Washing Powder has openly waged a war against its rival Tide by showing the Tide pack and demeaning it in its latest commercial.

Comparative advertising is when a particular player tries to promote its goods or services by comparing them with the goods or services of the competitors or the market leaders and concluding how their product is better. For those of you interested in law, following is a brief on the Indian laws on Comparative Advertising and Intellectual Property Rights:

http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l182-Comparative-Advertising-laws.html

Not very long ago, a cover page story in the Economic Times showed how HUL, who is losing ground in many of its markets, including India, to other majors and local competitors, is aggressively trying to get back its market share. The article stated how Mr. Paul Polman, global CEO of Unilever, has diverted all his attention on the Indian Market. This tension in the HUL managers’ cabins is justified, as the market share of the giant in fabric wash is down from 38.3% last year to 36.2%, in toothpaste it is down from 30% to 28% and from 52.7% to 46.3% in personal wash.

A similar case of an openly waged war happened a few months back between Horlicks and Complan, the two energy drink brands. In that case, both the warriors had drawn their swords and were fiercely combating. However, in case of Rin vs. Tide, so far Procter & Gamble (the company that manufactures Tide) has kept its blade in its sheath, and is using the legal shield to ward of the strike made by the freshly aggressive HUL. As per Economic Times, P&G has already filed a court case against HUL, which obviously HUL would have already been prepared for.

Interestingly, 22 seconds out of the 30 seconds in this advert are dedicated to Tide alone. The ad even mentions the USP of Tide, viz. fragrance and whitening property. Thus, approximately 75% of HUL’s ad-spend for this TVC was for promoting Tide.

According to experts, HUL strategically aired the ad during the long weekend, so that it would grab as many eyeballs as possible, before being pulled off air by the court or ASCII directives. But what I fail to understand is why HUL’s desperation manifested into something like this. There are myriad other ways through which HUL could have crushed P&G, like strategically using its deep rooted distribution network, or pushing the product through retailers. Such a short-term impulsive action to protect the existing and regain the lost market share by HUL is baffling. HUL, since I can remember, has been the top most on the list of the companies that I aspire to work for, and I have always held that company in high esteem. As a result, such an incident has disappointed me to some extent, and I hope the top brains at HUL have planned something justifiable. Otherwise there was no need for HUL to do such Rakhi-Sawant-ness and try to grab attention by way of controversies.

Apart from HUL’s defense, one more thing that I am intently looking forward to is P&G’s reply. P&G (apart from the legal action) will possibly either hit back at Rin, or take on HUL’s Surf Washing Powder in an Ariel advertisement, or maybe even just sit back and continue unfazed. I’m sure everyone out there is waiting for a counter strike from the supposedly provoked P&G. Let’s see whether this TVC acts as the sound of a trumpet blown before a war, or whether this battle dies an uninteresting death inside the walls of the courtroom.
( I have not reviewed and/or rated this ad as I normally do, because the issue related to this ad is of much greater concern than the look, content, casting and connect of the ad)