Problem Statement

Global market share had fallen from 11.2% in 2005 to 9.7% in 2009. In India,
its largest market, the situation was even worse: its 2009 share had dropped
to 15.5% from 18.4% four years earlier.
Samir Singh’s (Global Brand VP for Lifebuoy) challenge was to make Lifebuoy
the standard-bearer of this last goal while simultaneously doubling sales and
meeting ambitious profit objectives
 Lifebuoy History
Created by the Lever Brothers soap factory in 1894
It was the first soap to use carbolic acid, which gave it a red color and
strong, medicinal scent
Lifebuoys goal is to provide affordable and accessible hygiene and
health solutions that enable people to lead a life without fear of hygiene
anxieties and health consequences
First launched in UK Country was under severe grip of plague during
mid- 1890s
 100 years of Lifebuoy
In 1995, as Lifebuoy celebrated its 100th-year anniversary on the Indian market, the familiar
red, carbolic soap brick was the country's leading health soap
In 2001, total demand in the personal soap market declined 9.3%. Aggressive new local
competitors began offering at active beauty soaps, particularly in the lower-priced segment
where Lifebuoy had long been dominant.
Lifebuoy became seen as a cheap old fashioned soap, and its market share fell from 15.4% in
1997 to12.1% in 2001
decline occurred in rural areas -markets accounting for nearly 70% of Lifebuoy sales-
executives at Hindustan Unilever (HUL) decided to focus rebuilding efforts on the more than
50% of India's population that lived in its 635,000 villages.
One innovative response was to recruit women as local distributors in these remote
communities, appointing them as Shakti Ammas ("strength mothers")
 Rural Outreach through
Swasthya Chetna
The company also launched a rural outreach program called Swaslhya Chetna (SC) that
translated as "Health Awakening.
Launched in May 2002, SC's objective was to contact remote, media-inaccessible communities,
and grow Lifebuoys sales through education

Their most powerful tool was the "Glo-Germ" demonsh·ation in which children rubbed white
UV powder on their hands before being told to wash them clean with only water. When they
then held their hands under an ultraviolet light, the powder glowed,show ing how germs
remained even when hands looked clean.

The social impact of the SC rural outreach program was also initially impressive. By mid-
decade, it had reached more than 120 million people in 50,600 villages.
 Late-Decade Reversals: New
Market Challenges
Serial Missteps: Repositioning and Relaunch Failures
• A "Life without Fear" campaign was built around the theme that mothers need not
worry about sending their children outside to get dfrty. But while the TV ads were
emotionally engaging, they failed to communicate prod uct advantages or to motivate
consumers to buy. From 2005 to 2007, Lifebuoy's germ-protection attribute scores
dropped from 59.5 to 50.5,and market share declined from 18.4% to 17.6%
Rejuvenating Lifebuoy Liquid

An Emerging Competitor: Dettol' s Challenge

Launched in India in 1933 as an antiseptic liquid, Dettol had remained focused on its first-
aid segment for half a century. But as growth stalled in the early 1980s, management
extended the brand into soap, a market 50 times larger than its original mature segment.
Exploiting Dettol's antiseptic heritage and an instantly identifiable smell associated with
hospitals, the new soap was positioned as providing protection from germs
Lifebuoy Rebooted: New Players,
New Priorities
Defining a Global Strategy: Reclaiming the Heritage
The first element of the strategy was to educate consumers on the consequences of germs by
assuring mothers that Lifebuoy provided their families superior protection from 10 infections from
flu to diarrhea

marketing efforts focused on "hot spots"-times of the year such as monsoon season,school re-
entry, or crowded religious festivals when infection risk was high

The advertising and promotional activities were customized to each country's specific calendar of
hot-spot events as well as its competitive situation and stage of hygiene developmen
 Integrating the Social Mission: Beyond Pilots to Performance
Sidibe(Global Brand Director, Social Mission) urged Singh to make the
goal of reaching a billion people with handwashing programs a strategic
priority

Selling the Strategy: Engaging Operating Companies

 Implementation in India:
Reviewing the Options
The First Option : The KKD Rural Outreach Initiative

It emerged as a replacement for the SC "Health Awakening" program that had petered out due to its unacceptable
payback of almost 10 years
The innovative Khushiyon Ki Dali (KKD) -or "Caravan of Happiness"- was a collaborative, multibrand, nrral outreach
effort

KKD involved teams visiting villages and hosting meetings at whlch all sponsoring products were presented

Lifebuoy's KKD component was a scaled-back version of its SC routine, retaining the "Glo-Germ" demonstration but
focusing on housewives rather than children
 The Second Option: The MP Partnership Ini tiative
The program trained teachers and provided them w ith tools to deliver the
behavior change in their schools. It then leveraged that impact by requiring
each teacher to cascade the program to three other schools.

HUL would create the materials, deliver the training, provide the soap, and
manage the evaluation process; the MP government would provide school
access and support; and UNICEF would print activity kits and link the partners

The Third Option: The Urban Schools Liquids Initiative

Like KKD, this program was designed primrurily as a marketing initiative,

but differed from KKD on several dimensions: it was focused solely on
Lifebuoy, not on multiple products; it was aimed at urban markets
rather than rural locations; it targeted children not housewives; and
most critically, its objective was to increase the use of Lifebuoy Liquid
Handwash rather than Lifebuoy soap bars.
 The Decision: Singh's
Balancing Act
Lifebuoy India's Achievements -and Shortfalls
handwashing behavior-change programs in India had reached jus t 17 million
people in 2012, taking its total to 47 million since 2010. While impressive, the
performance was well below the trajectory necessary to achieve thecountry's
allocated behavior-change target of 450 million by 2015
Evaluating Progress, Focusing
Investments
the three behavior-change options,different perspectives emerged : In its first two years, KKD had reached 25
million people in 70,000 villages, with research showing that soap consumption increased by 8% following a KKD
visit
Singh's global team was more concerned that brief KKD Lifebuoy demonsb·ations to housewives were not resulting
in sustainable behavior change that would satisfy the PwC auditors

In 2013, for Rs. 54.5 million (about $780,000), KKD could bring its handwashing message to 8.5 million people

Sitapati had marketing investments that would yield much higher returns much faster. Although Sitapati knew that
the MP Partners.hip would be time consuming, with a long payback period, he was willing to consider it as a pilot