Storm the Norm

by Anisha Motwani

  Even more than awards is perception, as reflected in an editorial by Ishan Raghava, a renowned auto journalist,

  One of the resounding themes is the sudden interest in SUV’s by manufacturers—correction, compact SUV’s. A segment that was unheard of till a couple of years ago, suddenly has virtually every manufacturer displaying a concept or design study. Why is it? Thanks to the success of the likes of EcoSport as it was the only SUV’s-compact SUV’s specifically—that was able to show robust growth in a market with negative growth in almost every other segment.

  Filling the void

  For a marketer trying to taste success, ‘differentiation’ has been the foremost guiding principle to ensure that their product stands out from the crowd. It is a seed that a marketer continues to nurture with ideas until it transforms into an all-encompassing campaign to take the product’s journey forward. The evolved mantra for success of brands that create a legacy today lies in their courage and conviction to push boundaries and carve out niches.

  Differentiation is good but the ability to disrupt and challenge norms is what separates good marketers from great marketers. And with EcoSport, Ford managed to enter the latter category! Ford EcoSport not only filled the void in the segment but also introduced a new category for customers to choose from.

  Doing the unthinkable at a time when the Indian automotive industry was going through its worst slowdown is an example of how a great product and the right marketing strategies work together to create market magic.

  CHALLENGER TO GAME CHANGER

  If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

  —Peter Drucker, management consultant and author

  Poring over stacks of old marketing material and sifting through scattered sheets of formulae from the lab, Subhash Singh—divisional manager, personal wash, ITC Limited—tried to ignore a throbbing headache that had kicked in. Singh was at a loss. How does one shake up the market in something as ritualistic as a daily bath? What could be imparted to the tedious toilet soap tablet to transform the everyday bathing routine into an exotic sensorial experience that leaves the consumer humming all day?

  The year was 2004. The entire ensemble at ITC’s personal care products division, from the marketing team to the R&D personnel, had been working tirelessly for months to arrive at a formula that would change the game in the premium bathing category.

  A soap is a soap is a soap. Even thinking about product innovation as a strategic game changer in this highly functional category could be considered blasphemous.

  But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  The search begins

  The premium soap category consumer comprised primarily urban, young (under 45) women looking for skin-pampering from their soap as against a mere wash. In the premium bath space the growth opportunity lay not in market penetration or inter-brand movements but in garnering a sizable share of the consumer upgrade pie, from both mid and popular segments.

  After much deliberation, the personal care team concurred that only a contrarian way could help redefine the terms of competition and move into the blue ocean where you had the water to yourself. But what was the contrarian way? So far, the only attempts at innovation in the soap industry were the transparent glycerine bath soaps or the cream bathing bars introduced much later.

  In its pursuit of differentiation, the first cue for the ITC came from the Western world, where consumers had mostly switched to liquid soaps for both convenience and hygiene reasons. The ITC had developed shower gels in 2004 but they soon realized the product was actually ahead of its time, and that consumers were not ready to embrace the shower gel yet. However, the product formulation containing suspended encapsulated beads filled with moisturizing oils was a potential winner in the stable.

  Traditionally, Indians prefer bathing with the bucket and mug and a soap bar in hand. Top showers are still considered a luxury driven primarily by scarcity of water. This was clearly not the best-case scenario for shower gels. Also awareness of the product was low with confusion over how and how much to apply, and the ubiquitous soap cake continued to monopolize bathroom racks by default, even in premium urban households.

  However, in customer surveys undertaken to understand bathing habits of Indians, the quality perception of shower gels was very favourable. Most among those who had used shower gels at some point, felt it did nice things to their skin and left a lingering sense of freshness long after they had stepped out of the shower and dried themselves. So the problem with shower gels lay more in attitudes, habits and water constraints and not with the experience.

  The challenge now was to harness this positive perception of shower gels and present the product to the customer in a format that would elicit greater acceptance. And the team figured it wouldn’t really have to break the mould, well, not literally.

  The insight that changed the game

  If only all the natural goodness and sensorial appeal of the shower gel could be taken and transported to the convenient and familiar mould of a bathing bar…

  So, while the objective for shower gels was to become the brand of choice when consumers evolved to using shower gels, the clear immediate agenda was sharp-focused on an innovative product which could deliver all the benefits of a shower gel in the ease of usage of a bathing bar format.

  This was the big opportunity for crafting a unique shower gel soap and thus began the success story of the Fiama Di Wills gel bathing bars.

  Serendipity

  Subash and his team of scientists, researchers and marketers were in the midst of high decibel sessions debating buzzworthy innovative ideas. However, a worthwhile conclusion seemed to elude the team. One fine morning, a young scientist, from the R&D centre, simply froze shower gel in an ice tray to throw up a near-Eureka moment. However, this was just the beginning of the journey, and there was a mountain to climb to create a product that was unique but could be mass-produced and delivered to the consumer seamlessly.

  Thus began the arduous five-year-long journey to craft and perfect the gel bathing bar that would go on to transform this age-old category.

  Challenge No. 1: The first challenge was to achieve stability of form

  The gel liquid upon freezing would change to solid state; but when exposed to normal ambient temperatures, would change back to liquid form. The aim was to bring about a stable change in the rheology1 of the product so that even at ambient temperatures, it retained its solid form.

  A plethora of experiments with solvents and processing technology were undertaken, before the R&D team hit upon a ‘liquid crystal freezing technology’, which changed the crystalline structure of the product, making it stable in solid state even at room temperatures.

  Challenge No. 2: Aesthetic appeal

  There was also the concern for aesthetics, since changing from liquid to solid state often affects the transparency of the product and leads to discolouration. So scientists needed to find the right cooling process to retain product transparency and colour stability for better aesthetic appeal.

  Challenge No. 3: Wear rate

  Wear rate was perhaps the biggest challenge as Indian consumers are culturally more inclined towards value-for-money products. So a gel bar which didn’t last long enough was useless. Again, the trick was to strike the right balance of texture. An overdose of ingredients to make it last longer would make the gel bar harsh, while it would wear too fast if made too mild. Reaching this optimal level was an iterative process demanding significant research.

  The cradle for all this experimentation was the ITC facility in Haridwar, where an entire floor was dedicated to developing gel bars. The years of diligent effort and sheer detailing that went into the creation of this unique bathing accessory are mind-boggling. No stone was left unturned in crafting a product that would cut through the clutter and create a unique proposition.

  Challenge No. 4: Differentiation

  A lot of thought was put into the shape of the gel bathing bar to make
it a key differentiator. For ages, soap bars had been either oval or square in shape. ITC decided to break the mould and introduce the Fiama Di Wills gel bar in a unique dewdrop shape. A design house specializing in ergonomics was appointed to create the novel shape that fit snugly into the palm and enhanced grip in water. The dewdrop shape has since become one of the strongest brand attributes of the Fiama Di Wills gel bar.

  Challenge No. 5: Cue ‘premium’

  The entire bathing experience had to be luxurious and pampering. So for the first time, the concept of exotic ingredients and skin conditioners in a soap was introduced. From patchouli, Brazilian orange, ginseng, seaweed, peach and avocado to bearberry extracts, blackcurrant, lemongrass, macademia nut, oats and nutgrass, Fiama Di Wills gel bathing bars introduced exotic skincare ingredients from around the world in each of their variants. Till that point, only indigenous natural ingredients like commonly known fruits and flowers and traditional Indian naturals, milkcream, glycerine, etc. were being used in soaps by the competition.

  Challenge No. 6: Building the aroma advantage

  The next, and perhaps most significant, task was to create a strong olfactory recall at every stage. From the first whiff on opening the product packaging to the actual in-use bathing experience and finally, the lingering fragrance long after one steps out of the shower, there had to be an olfactory wow at every moment. Some of the world’s finest fragrance houses were approached to develop winning fragrances for the innovative gel bars.

  In this exercise, it had to be kept in mind that the Indian environment is endowed with so much of strong natural aroma, that subtle western perfumes would be overpowered in these conditions. So customization of the fragrances was needed to arrive at the right balance between subtle and strong—a formulation that would wow users with distinctive notes.

  Again, fragrance, like music, tends to be extremely personal and there can never be one winning formula which appeals to all. Leading fragrance houses were brought on board to create a wide array of scent leads to cater to diverse tastes—harmonized with the exotic ingredients used in the gel bars—Fruity (peach and avocado), Citrus Fresh (Brazilian orange), Green Fresh (seaweed and lemongrass), Floral Beauty (patchouli), Gourmand (bearberry). This blend significantly enhanced the premium appeal and a winning product was ready.

  Challenge No. 7: Manufacturing technology: Borrowing from unconventional sources

  Overcoming multiple challenges, systematically and relentlessly, the prototype was perfected after five years of intense R&D, trials and errors. The last hurdle was to put in place a mechanism for mass producing the gel bathing bar.

  Getting the product right at lab-scale level is one thing, but commercial production to feed the market is a different ball game altogether. This challenge was far more daunting given the amount of innovation that went into creating the gel bar. There wasn’t any existing soap manufacturing unit with the appropriate equipment available to handle its production. The conventional bar soap is usually manufactured by stamping all the ingredients together in the mould. That process wouldn’t hold for the gel bar.

  In search of an ideal solution, the company was forced to look at other domains. The study of manufacturing set-ups, mostly in the food segment, like confectionery and candies, served as an important learning, which again would require a lot of optimization to adjust to changing parameters, including the weather, besides ensuring all the special ingredients in the product retained their core qualities.

  In the end, the technology solution for gel bars production came from a completely unrelated industry—the manufacturing of hard-boiled candies where liquid is converted into candies. Liquid shower gels were developed in large mixers and then poured into moulds and channelled through large freezing chambers to solidify the gel into a bathing bar format—a first of its kind in India and perhaps the world.

  2009: A star is born

  The journey of Fiama Di Wills Gel bar is one of relentless pursuit to innovate in an industry that, over many decades, had not experienced much novelty.

  The dewdrop-shaped gel bathing bars thus came to stand for the young and contemporary in an age-old soap industry characterized over decades by formulaic routine bathing bars, either oval or square, thus creating a bravura wow moment in one of the largest FMCG segments.

  To go with the unique story of shower gels frozen into gel bathing bars, the heady mix of exotic ingredients in a refreshing new range of bright colours and the assortment of intoxicating fragrances combined to make the product a consumer favourite, both for reasons of aspiration as well as curiosity to try out a whole new bathing experience.

  A unique packaging solution added novelty to the product offering. Superior packaging, employing food-grade foil wrap, was used to keep the freshness alive in the gel bars over an extended period.

  Telling the story

  So how was communication to do justice to the task of telling the story of this dramatic product to the consumer? How did one articulate the positives of such a unique product, which was a first in so many respects, to drive home the message?

  The launch communication in 2009–10 centred around ‘Nature and Science’, an amalgamation of exotic ingredients depicting ‘nature’ and the advanced, patented liquid crystal freezing technology cueing ‘science.’ But the campaign impacted only a small set of consumers, with most not able to relate to the message.

  Next, the Fiama Di Wills team tried the ‘skin benefits’ and the ‘sensorial experience’ route, which gave the brand a temporary boost before hitting a plateau again.

  If it is unique and different, why not let it make headlines

  Eventually, the marketing team realized that the best option was to cut the jargon and take the direct route by highlighting the unique product differentiation—the shower gel in a bathing bar format story—to consumers. This had the desired effect and the uniqueness of the product was finally conveyed, loud and clear.

  ‘Shower Gel in a Bathing Bar’ is what clicked with the consumers and the Fiama Di Wills gel bar saw a meteoric rise in demand, mindshare and consumer franchise.

  The communication created exclusivity and an intrigue value for consumers to try the bathing bar.

  A lot of innovation went into experiential marketing initiatives that emphasized gel skin conditioners as a special enhancing ingredient. Consumers were engaged through the application of gel skin conditioner, with a moisture test meter giving instant reading to highlight the increased moisture levels. A film showing the innovative ‘liquid’ to ‘bar’ journey accompanied the consumer engagement activities in modern retail, multiplexes and other target rendezvous where premium consumers could be accessed.

  Result

  The outcomes were a whopping 15–20 per cent share gain from the market leader and successful uptrading by the urban consumer into this new product segment.

  Jewel in the crown

  The many firsts Fiama Di Wills gel bar notched up—from its unique dewdrop shape to the first Indian patent in liquid crystal freezing technology to exotic ingredients and skin conditioners and even pure gold in it—earned it the ‘Product of the Year’ in 2010, within six months of its launch.

  ‘Product of the Year’ is a global consumer recognition standard that celebrates champions and rewards the best innovations in retail products done through an independent consumer survey across the country. The recognition standard has been awarding innovative retail products for the past twenty-nine years across twenty-eight countries. In 2009, ‘Product of the Year’ debuted in India with twenty-six product categories ranging from grooming and consumer durables to foods and beverages. Fiama Di Wills gel bar won the award in the soap category in 2010, based on a large independent survey conducted by AC Nielsen with 40,000 Indian consumers across thirty-six centres in India.

  Soon after this, Fiama Di Wills extended its franchise to a premium range of personal care products comprising shampoos, conditioners and shower gels, designed for young, contemporary and confident
consumers who sought to indulge themselves. The gel bathing bar, with its liquid shower gel in a bathing bar format, became the jewel in the line’s crown, catapulting Fiama Di Wills into the orbit of an exclusive club, hitherto represented by only large imported brands. It created a new sub-category in soaps, enabling the company to own a unique space without the worry of ‘sharks from the red ocean’.

  2012: Introducing high fashion in this commoditized category

  On the back of its initial success, Fiama Di Wills introduced the concept of designer series soaps in India, another first, collaborating with ace Indian fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, to create the first signature series of the couture spa range of gel bathing bars with pure gold. Launched with much fanfare in 2012, the signature series was a roaring success, and served to accentuate the intrinsic ties with the fashion world Fiama Di Wills had from the outset.

  To further cement the connection between beauty and fashion, Fiama Di Wills associated with the high-octane Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, a natural synergy with Wills Apparels—the lifestyle house brand of ITC. Fashion and lifestyle went hand in hand as aspiration markers in the personal grooming space, and this association helped integrate this as part of the brand’s DNA.

  Looking ahead

  Having achieved a clutch of firsts with the game-changing ‘liquid-to-soap’ gel bathing bar—like the dewdrop shape, exciting colours, introduction of skin conditioners and skincare emollients that would condition the skin to make it look younger—the next focus would be to carry the gel story forward and offer a range of gel products across the multiple categories in the wash and care segment. Gel is clearly the future and the Fiama Di Wills gel bar has simply delineated the path to the future.

  It was a massive leap of faith that enabled a challenger brand to carve out a niche among well-entrenched toilet soap titans hogging market shares. The project was fuelled by the desire to create a unique brand proposition through smart product innovation. It was a fresh, bold approach with no cobwebs of the beaten path attached. And the end product not only stands out in a crowd, it gives a new direction to the bath soap segment.