Hll Shifts Ala Brand To Rin

Fast moving consumer goods major Hindustan Lever has migrated Ala, its fabric whitener brand, to Rin in a bid to consolidate Rin as one of its 30 power brands in India.

Over a period of time, the brand name Ala will be changed to Rin fabric whitener.

The company has relaunched Ala in a new package and design. Priced at Rs 24 for a 500 ml bottle, the new pack sports the tag 'Ala by Rin.'

According to sources, the move stems from the fact that both Rin and Ala are related to superlative whiteness.

HLL's new strategy aims to migrate consumers of brands that are being phased out to existing brands through intelligent communications and clever use of packaging graphics.

 

Most of these non-core brands are those that over lap the power brands in positioning and target audience.

M S Banga, chairman of Hindustan Lever had earlier said, "There is no advantage in carrying two brands when you have the same benefit and same price point. So what we would do is merge those brands with some of the 30 power brands.'

HLL plans to prune its 110 brands to 40, of which 30 will be national power brands, while the other 10 would be regional.

These 40 brands contribute about 90 per cent to the turnover. The parameters for selection of these brands are size, strength and competitive positioning.

Also, cross categorisation is undertaken to get better value of the brand strength. Hamam, for instance gets about 60 per cent of its volumes from Tamil Nadu, where it has above a 30 per cent market share.

The company has withdrawn Aim, the rural toothpaste brand from the shelves and has extended the Fair & Lovely cosmetic brand into soaps as well.

HLL will keep these on as purely regional brands and support them heavily in these limited geographies.

In beverages, tea in particular, the company has migrated brands such as Top Star, Red Dust and Super Dust under the 3 Roses umbrella.