Saturday, November 21, 2009

Brand Update : Rexona (Reborn November 2009)

HUL never ceases to surprise me. One year back , HUL decided to kill Rexona and migrate the brand to Hamam. The brand also launched a high profile campaign announcing the migration of Rexona to Hamam. It created a Hamam variant named Hamam Abhyangasnanam and all the ads screamed - Rexona is now Hamam Abhyangasnanam .
Yesterday , I was surprised to see a television commercial of Rexona. So the brand has been resurrected after one year. I am not sure why a company like HUL has such a complicated brand strategy. How can a company decide on killing one brand, spent crores of money in promoting the brand migration and after one year decide to bring back the killed brand??

If the company doing this is an amateur firm, then it can be seen as a learning experience but when the company is HUL, no logic can explain this. Can a company like HUL misjudge consumer mindset like this ?

The only reason I see is that there is some serious brand vision issue with HUL. The company has lost its vision for the brands. There is a discontinuity in the strategy for the HUL brands and this is evident in the way HUL has dealt with the brands in recent times. I have a feeling that the brand managers have lost a long term focus on the brands. They are now driven by the ROI and short-term profitability which is driving them in unnecessary brand extensions and migrations.
At the deo front , Rexona deo is a neglected brand . The promotions are not good enough and nothing exciting is happening at that domain. It is time that HUL devise some longterm brand vision for its brands before it is too late.

Anyways , as a customer, I am glad that Rexona is back. This is a sensible brand and have a potential to be a good simple family soap.

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Rexona

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