Innovative Brands: Take a Good Song and Make it Better!!
The Indian economy opened up in 1991. I was 3yr old then, and it meant nothing for me. We were a middle-class household, with a relatively less varied consumption basket. My Baba would sometimes get a few exciting products for us, from his tours to Calcutta. He would refer to them as “imported.” I didn’t know what he implied. The labels on them would have alien alphabets. My sister and I would eagerly wait for his return from the trip. To discover some unique products and flaunt them to our friends at school. These were products like a digital wristwatch that would have hen’s crow as an alarm or fruit-shaped sugar jelly.
Of one of these products, ‘Hula Hula’ brought by Baba stood out the most. It was only a talcum powder but ‘different’. Talcum powders sold in the market then were a solution to perspiration and humidity. There were very few or no fragrance options, the most common would be rose-scented. Their packaging was not sleek and you had to use a sharp pin to prick holes in the top to get the powder out and cover it with cap. Those caps would often get lost and powder inside would get moistened with humidity. Hula Hula changed the way I thought of talcum powder, summers now categorized as before and after Hula Hula.
While growing up, summers in Bihar were not something to look forward to, it was scorching and humid, with Loo- heat waves, in the afternoons. My mother disapproved of keeping water bottles in the refrigerator. She felt fridge-cold water would make us sick. Earthen pots were more commonly used to cool water. There were no air conditioners then, but Khus coolers. Long power cuts were regular. Transformers would get burnt out because of excessive heat. Without power, coolers would be of no use. We would sleep on the terrace with mosquito nets tied over our bed. Taking a bath, and putting some talcum powder before sleeping would be necessary to absorb all the sweat, which would be inevitable. Hula Hula was the answer to those humid and particularly hot nights. Most importantly, it was a menthol infused talcum powder. It gave soothing cooling sensation after applying. Hula Hula formulated their talcum powder for sweat and for heat. But also thoughtfully addressed other consumer issues. It came in attractive fragrances. Its packaging was innovative. You only would need to twist the fixed cap, to get the powder out, no pricking with the pin. It quickly became a daily ritual for us to use it for a comfortable sleep. That was our personal air- conditioner. It simply made our, life better. It made talcum powder interesting for a young kid.
Though I registered brands, my fascination with the world of brands was still in infancy. I spent my early teens in a boarding school. My exposure to brands and advertisements were limited. In the late 90’s early 2000s, I distinctly remember, two Brands that caught my attention — one at the school and the other at home.
My boarding school was amidst hills in the Chhota Nagpur region, near Ranchi. Kids studying here mostly belonged to the middle or upper-middle class. A lot of my friend’s parents were bank managers of PSU banks; few were from business families. The school would instruct parents, very strictly, about things we could keep, other than uniforms, etc., with us. There would be clear instructions on what brands of shoes, socks, even combs, were allowed and of what make. We had little scope to be fashionable or out of the ordinary. Our window to outside brands in boarding school was the tuck shop. Tuck shop was the only place in the school, where a monetary transaction could take place. My parents would put a fixed amount of money in the shop’s account, for which I could take a few products from the shop every week. Our tuck shop was still in the pre-1991 era. It would offer dull and unimaginative brands like Milk Bikis biscuits, Dabur Amla hair oil, Cherry Blossoms shoe polish, Natraj, and Reynolds stationary. We had little interaction with the outside world. The TV room was accessible only on Sundays and only showed Doordarshan. We were allowed to watch Shaktiman, which was not very interesting but had the TV room full, mostly because Sundays are quite lonely in a boarding school.
During summer vacations, we would go out and explore new products and brands. There would be developments and stories, which kids would share post vacations. They would also bring with them a few products which would pass the Housemaster’s test, i.e., it is not too profane to be allowed in this temple of learning and simple living. A few of this product would be — laminated orange paper to bind books instead of plain brown paper, Liquid shoe polish instead of the cakey ‘Cherry’ whose box would get stuck at times.
Once after the summer vacation, back at school, Abhinav, my arch-enemy in the class, was flaunting a new kind of pen. It was a gel pen of a brand called ADD Gel. The pen looked beautiful, with a transparent cover, unlike the blue and white of 045 Reynolds ball pen. It had a thick refill, with white gel at the end. Abhinav boasted that it would never bust in your pocket, and it was five times the price of my ball pen. It came in colors that were unimaginable to my young mind. It also had a gold and silver glitter ink variant. It wrote well, clean, was waterproof, and made your handwriting look beautiful. It was indeed, amazing. I was jealous and wanted that pen. In my next letter, to my mother, I wrote about a rumor in school. Rina ma’am, our English teacher, would give two marks extra to students writing with this gel pen. It was also the main reason why I lost out to Abhinav, in monthly class tests in English. I also expressed that my mother needed to ask my local guardians to send me a set of those pens immediately. Else I would lose out to class ranking to Abhinav this year. My middle-class mother was convinced, though the pens were expensive and needed a frequent refill.
I had, unknowingly, just convinced my parents that this new brand was ‘value for money.’ Only later in my life, I would realize this was essential to build a famous new brand in India. The second brand that I discovered at home was a surprise for even one of the largest MNC in India- Hindustan Lever Ltd. (Now Unilever).
Different from all the Lux, Margo, and Cinthol, there was a new soap in town. It was called Dove. This was a special soap. Hindustan Lever Ltd. launched it as a beauty bar and not as a soap. There were debates on it is a moisturizer or a soap. It cost five times more than ordinary soap. It also, maybe to justify its worthiness, dissolved faster. Often you would hear neighbor aunties complaining, about how a Dove bar got over in just four days when the Rs 10 soap lasted for a month. But the women knew it was worth it. Mostly my mother would use the bar for washing the face while a less costly soap would be used for the rest of the body, a value-for-money approach. I can recollect those days, we were still not introduced to the concept of the attached bathroom. We lived in a joint family with a shared bath. Dove bar was not kept in there; men in the house may not know that this was not an ordinary soap to be rubbed all over your body. The soap was safely stored, in my mother’s almirah, only to be brought out for use on special occasions or when my mom would go out. I would also get to use it sometime after troubling my mom a lot. It would make your skin smooth and soft. I also remember rubbing it on my hair, against my mom’s wishes, since I felt it made my hair silky and shiny.
Hula Hula, Add Gel, Dove were examples of brands that took the everyday product and gave a 10X better experience. The innovation in the product would capture its consumer's needs and attract them towards it. More often then not, these new innovative products would make their customers push their budget and change their buying and using behavior. But what was more remarkable for me as a ‘student of brands’ was that it touched a chord with almost every common middle class household in India, such as mine.
