Submitted By : Prasanna Anand Karlekar

Executive summary
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Company with a heritage of over 80 years in India. With over 35 brands spanning
20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care,
toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and
water purifiers, the Company is a part of the everyday life of millions of
consumers across India. Its portfolio includes leading household brands such as
Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Ponds, Vaseline, Lakm,
Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, Axe, Brooke Bond, Bru, Knorr,
Kissan, Kwality Walls and Pureit.
The Company has over 16,000 employees and has an annual turnover of around
Rs.25,206 crores (financial year 2012 - 2013). HUL is a subsidiary of Unilever,
one of the worlds leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong
local roots in more than 100 countries across the globe with annual sales of 51
billion in 2012. Unilever has 67.25% shareholding in HUL.
 Mission & values
Work to create a better future every day
To help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with
brands and services that are good for them and good for others.
To will inspire people to take small everyday actions that can
add up to a big difference for the world.
To develop new ways of doing business with the aim of doubling
the size of our company while reducing our environmental
impact.
Believes in maintaining high standards of Corporate
Governance.
 Brand Recognition

HUL is No. 1 in most of the categories it

operates (laundry, soaps, hair care, BRAND
CLOUD home care, skin care, deodorants).
Two out of three Indians use HULs products,
making its brands a part of every day life.
Offer more than 1000 products under 42
brands .
7 brands > Rs. 1000 crs ; 13 brands > Rs.
500 crs .
17 out of top 100 most trusted brands in
India Nelson Survey, 2013.

Brand Equity Survey, 2013

 Brand Portfolio
Its portfolio of brands included Lux, Lifebuoy, Liril,
Surf, Ponds, Vaseline, Vim, Clinic All Clear and Axe.
Most of these brands remained market leaders for several
years in their respective product categories & by early
2003 HLL had launched a number of brand extensions with
varying degree of success. Its flagship brands Ponds &
Clinic All Clear made a smooth transition from acold
cream to Age defying creams, soap, facewash,
talc,towelettes& from anti-dandruff shampoo to
hair oil category respectively was somewhat successful.
Marketing failure of unilever limited
Ponds
Mostly skin care
products,
positioned as an
all purpose skin
care.
Brand that
celebrate women's
courage and
 Ponds Toothpaste

Ponds extended to toothpaste category.

But the Ponds toothpaste extension failed miserably.
It was not accepted as Ponds was associated to freshness, fragrance and clean skin.
 Ponds, the popular brand of face cream, didnt
prove to be quite so popular when it applied its
name to toothpaste. In a blind test environment,
people were not able to differentiate Ponds
toothpaste from that of Colgate.The real
problem was that no one seemed to be
interested when Ponds label was attached to the
toothpaste;
Although Ponds had successfully extended its
brand before to soaps & shampoo, but the
attributes required in toothpaste case were
simply missing.
Brands need to be careful to choose the territory
in which they tread.
Lack of proper research before entry into a new
market or segment can lead to catastrophic
results which include wasting of big sum of
money on product development and marketing.
To consumers the brand Ponds was
nothing but fragrance & a consumer
product for external application
only;this did work brilliantly with soaps
& creams however the attributes for
toothpaste are taste.This mis-match
between the attribute of toothpaste &
the soap created a disillusionment in
the mind of consumers thus when
Ponds ventured into oral health care, it
was ignored. Consumers simply refused
to acknowledge its presence leading to
a sudden but painful death of a brand.
 Conclusion
Extensions have more chance of being successful when their functional benefits
remain alike or the same.
Extensions must strengthen the core and the core must remain unchanged.
HUL brand Ponds successfully moved from cold cream to other extensions such as
Age defying creams, soap, shampoo & talc, because the basic premise of protection
for the skin and freedom from wear and tear remained the same, while as in case of
Ponds toothpaste its failed even though both the product are also to be used for
cleanness and freshness.
With toothpaste we clean & then spit it out, whereas with cream, soap or shampoo
we apply it externally. Thus perception of cleanness and freshness is taken so
differently in different products. Even-though the attributes are same, soap &
toothpaste yet the market does not perceive it to be same.
A wrong choice in brand extension without proper market research & without proper
product attribute knowledge is what led to failure of the Ponds Toothpaste.
Thank you