Dettol vs Savlon

I have always been an outdoor person since childhood. I always preferred to ride my cycle than to play ludo at home. I was not hugely built but pound for pound I packed quite a punch. I cannot count the number of times i have fallen off my bike or dived and scratched my arm while attempting a catch. It was the order of the day .Surprisingly it was not the prospect of getting reprimanded by my mother but something else that used to send shivers into my spine..........................Dettol!!!!

As if the wound did not hurt enough that the monster liquid took upon itself to multiply the agony tenfold!!!! My mom would clean the wound with Dettol, and even if it was a small scratch it burned like ambers on fire.
I was not the only unlucky child. The Indian mother had become so used to the application of dettol on her child that unless should hear the howls of her kid she would not believe that the wound would heal. You could not complain, she was showing her love and concern, but we were too unfortunate to be pitted against the wily old liquid!! It was a one way wrestling affair throughout. The Giant liquid pummelled us into submission.

And then came our superhero. The superhero had a lot of superpowers to protect us children from all infections but alas he was not the articulate types. He lacked the skill of interacting with the media. So even if he did a good deed, no one could see that because of him being a bad communicator. Soon the hero disappeared into wilderness.

The superhero was /is called Savlon. It was an antiseptic lotion that did not hurt. Yes, it did not hurt!!!!!!!!! It was as if Santa Claus decided to gift all the children in India the magnificent gift of Savlon bottles seeing our misery. And Santa in his own inimitable style decided to add a bit of zing in the form of a scent to the antiseptic lotion (Our villain dettol used to stink like a hospital).
How can a product ,which was proved by laboratory tests as better than its competitor, backed by one of the most reputed business houses in the world, having many product advantages over its competitor, have any chance of failing in the market ?
But it did.

Why did it fail?
Lack of effective marketing is one of the most important reasons.
Rather than marketing Savlon as a better germ killing antiseptic, J&J promoted Savlon as a non stingy, non smelling antiseptic. But what’s wrong with that? The answer is that J&J could not read the Consumer Psyche.

Consumers tend to believe that the stinging sensation is a side-effect of the effectiveness of the antiseptic.So if it does not hurt, it is not effective. Dettol had taught them that way.
Launched in 1936, Dettol antiseptic liquid was as generic to its category as Xerox became to copiers. There was little that needed to be done to promote it .Dettol’s brand equity was built through sheer usage over the years.

Though Dettol had a high penetration level and almost all households kept a bottle of it handy, they rarely used it. So to stoke sales, Reckitt (then Reckitt Colman of India) decided to expand Dettol’s usage beyond cuts and bruises. This resulted in a communication campaign that showed that Dettol could be used as an all-purpose antiseptic while shaving, rinsing babies’ nappies, as a general disinfectant and so on. Soon, all these uses pointed to a number of possible extensions, namely Dettol Soaps which forms nearly ¾th of the 230 crore brand’s turnover.

Savlon (J&J) arrived in the Indian market as the way giant Soviet Union Ice Hockey team arrived in the 1980 winter games. They entered the Olympic tournament as heavy favorites, having won every ice hockey gold medal but one since 1956. On the other hand US had a team of amateur and collegiate players. The U.S. and USSR prepared for the medal round in different ways. Soviet coach Viktor Thikonov rested most of his best players, preferring to let them study plays rather than actually skate. U.S. coach Herb Brooks, however, continued with his tough, confrontational style, skating "hard" practices and berating his players for perceived weaknesses.

A better product (team) was beaten old school by innovativeness and tenacity of the inferior product (team). The bad preparation and laziness of the better product ( team ) helped .
Miracles do happen. Sometimes on ice and sometimes in marketing!!!!!