If news reports are to be believed, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has received complaints against HUL from two consumers against the controversial Rin advertisement.
The general secretary of ASCI, Allan Collaco has said that a notice to HUL will be issued on Wednesday and HUL will be given a 15-day period to respond.
Apparently, there are a few complaints pending against HUL in connection with other ads too. Last month, P&G reportedly lodged a complaint against HUL for a shampoo ad. Interestingly, last year, HUL’s market share in the Rs.11,000 Crore laundry industry slipped by 4 percent and last month, Rin’s market share stood at 4.8 percent, against Tide’s 8.8 percent…
Watch out this space for more updates.
There are two things which might make it tough for HUL to get through the legal net:
1. The ad compares visually shows Tide Naturals a cheaper variant of Tide and Rin (and the tests which HUL claims are done on Tide Naturals) while the Voice over says “Rin give better cleaning than Tide” (and not Tide Naturals). Industry insiders say that “Tide” is a better product and hence the voice over is a lie being aired across millions of homes.
2. While it has been a common practice to compare your brand with a “ordinary brand” and convey the benefit in exaggeration to dramatize the impact but when this “ordinary brand” is given a name one cannot exxagerate as it becomes disparaging to the competing brand. The difference between the two shirts shown in visuals is an exaggeration of Rin’s superiority claim on Tide Naturals and for which HUL can easily be sued.
This whole act of HUL should be seen as the culmination of two things:
1. Rin shares at its historical low. It’s lowest in last 10 years at 4.6% (down from 7.1% it used to have in Jan 2003). while Tide share is almost double of Rin at 8.8% (up from 2.4% in Jan 2003). Not just Rin, HUL’s bread and butter brand Wheel has lost almost 2 share points to mainly local players like Ghari over last 1 year.
2. Since the local unit of Unilver hasn’t been able to meet its targets, there has been presure from the parent company to get back shares at whatever cost. For sure this kind of an ad would not have been aired without the go-ahead of anyone below the rank of HUL’s India head.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/cons-products/fmcg/Polman-tries-carrot-stick-to-drive-HUL/articleshow/5563008.cms
http://pixelbrush.blogspot.com/2010/03/detergent.html