Looking For Younger Scalps

Yet strangely, in the early nineties, the fashionable hair-care brand found itself greying and middle-aged. Over the years, it had done nothing to widen its franchise by bringing in get new consumers. The result? The brand is today besieged on various fronts: its loyal consumers are greying at the temples, Levers Clinic Active has usurped the task of expanding the hair cream category, and new light hair oil brands, which negate the greasy effect of normal oils, have since entered the hair dressings market. More so, if Brylcreem hopes to rope in new users, it has to quickly dispel its current image of being fuddy-duddy.

 

TTK Sara Lee, Brylcreems new owners, and its ad agency, RK Swamy BBDO, are currently working overtime to make a successful yet difficult comeback. Backed by a new product formulation and packaging change, an aggressive advertising campaign has already been unveiled, which has little resemblance to the testimonial ads of the past.

The brand owners are hoping that the Rs 6 crore brand will not only bring in new young users to its fold, but also push up the brands share to well beyond its 40 per cent share of the Rs 15 crore hair cream market.

So as the identity overhaul takes place, The Strategist takes stock of the brands challenges.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Today, Brylcreems biggest problem is to find a way to grow the hair cream market. Of the Rs 360 crore hair dressings market in India, hair oils comprise 80 per cent of the market, whereas hair creams cover barely 2 per cent.

There was a reason why hair creams continued to languish, while oils, be it coconut or amla, continued to grow. The consumer did not feel the need to groom his hair with anything other than oil. No wonder then that hair oils had a penetration level close to 96 per cent. The goodness and the nutritional benefit of oil for hair was firmly lodged in the Indian consumers mind. Especially, massaging the scalp was considered to have do-good properties.

Despite its dominance over the hair dressings market, hair oils had one drawback. The oily/greasy look that oils imparted was perceived as unfashionable by those who cared for hair grooming (as different from hair care). So despite well-entrenched competition, till 1991, Brylcreem had built a Rs 5 crore franchise in the hair dressings market. No major initiative was taken on the brand, because it did not mesh with the rest of the portfolio of its owners, SmithKline Beecham.

But in 1991, Brylcreem disappeared from the shop shelves in India as a result of a global realignment where, SmithKline Beecham sold the brand to Sara Lee.

Till 1994, when Kiwi TTK, a joint venture between Sara Lee and TTK relaunched the brand, the loyal Brylcreem consumer relied on the friendly neighbourhood smuggler to source stocks from Yemen, with usage instructions written in Arabic. During the period Brylcreem was off the shelves, Levers sensed an opportunity and launched Clinic Active. Not to be left behind, Balsara too, launched a rather short-lived hair cream brand called Ace.

Going for the kill

Since Brylcreems relaunch, what were the options open for the brand? Its dedicated users were ageing, obviously a diminishing core of loyal users. Says Asha Deb, account manager, RK Swamy BBDO, The task, therefore, was to broaden its appeal by wooing a younger audience. It was evident that while Brylcreem enjoyed a strong position of being a good old cream, it had failed to inspire the youth/new triers to the cream segment vis-