Santoor Positioning Strategy

Santoor is the flagship soap brand of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCL) which was launched in 1985. The brand derived the name from combining Sandal + Turmeric. When Santoor was launched, sandalwood and turmeric was its main ingredient. Since already there were two brands (Moti & Mysore Soap), which were having same ingredient and were positioned as premium soap. So a mental mapping was done to where to position the Santoor soap. Santoor Soap and its competitors were analyzed on a matrix. After this mental mapping Santoor positioned itself as a brand consisting of the age-old benefits of sandal and turmeric. The campaign projected a very traditional picture of the Indian women draped in a saree. The positioning was basically ingredient based at a reasonable price. Santoors advertisements were mainly focused on the ingredients that were used in the soap.

Moti Soap & Mysore Soap

Pric e

Santoor Soap

Product

It resulted in increase in sales and the brand become popular but the figures reached stagnation in a matter of one year. The research suggested that customers are not correlating the brand with skin care and beauty. The research also told that women want their skin to lie about their age.

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Rossiter Percy Grid

Informational Transformational

Low Involvement

Problem Solution

Drama

High Invol vem ent

Comparative

Drama

Negative Motivation

Positive Motivation

Santoor wasnt telling about the benefits of its soap. But after some time when Santoor wasnt getting desired result then they repositioned the brand. They repositioned Santoor from ingredient oriented to benefit oriented soap. So far santoors advertisement was informative advertisement, because it was in introduction stage of its product life cycle (PLC). Since soap is a low involvement product so theme of its advertisement was problem solution. After repositioning their advertisement become transformational and start telling about feelings and emotions. Transformational advertisement is more useful than informational advertisement in low involvement product. Santoor have used positive motivation in its advertisement. The advertisement struck the required balance between benefits and ingredients to entice new customers while not alienating existing users. The advertisement was drama based. They started telling about a unique and emotional benefit younger looking skin. Now Santoors positioning become for younger looking skin or ageless skin. The positioning comes from the consumer insight that ultimately the customers look for a younger skin which is another smart way of defining beauty. The focus on Younger Skin also acts as a powerful differentiator because other brands were focusing on "beautiful skin" or "looking
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beautiful". Santoor targeted the middle class house wife of India. Santoor later reached out to a whole new urban woman - a woman who excelled in her career as much as she excelled as a mother. The next big idea came in the form of communicating the "Younger looking Skin" concept using "Mistaken Identity" theme. The theme of ageless skin, captured first in a TV advertisement 20 years back, has remained constant over the years. And the company intends to keep it that way, as long as its bringing the right results. As a result of the campaign women see themselves in every single Santoor soap ad. The theme has been consistently reinforced by the brand through various advertisements. The story is compelling, realistic and easy to understand. The image was enhanced by a series of extremely catchy advertisement, where the Protagonist, a married woman was often mistaken for a college girl. The Mistaken Identity campaign has targeted the young-to-middle-aged housewife segment by proposing a means, which could help in prolonging their youthful beauty. Consumers values keep changing and that affect a brand. The case was true for Santoor also. Indian women's mindset were evolving and breaking free from the traditional mindset. The Mother-daughter equation and the campaigns set in the supermarkets, wedding and bangle shop did not do well with the achievement oriented customers. So santoor changed the product communication. The achiever protagonist was introduced in 2004. The campaign showed the mother as a successful fashion designer with the same positioning and theme. In 2006 Santoor made some big change in its marketing strategy. The campaigns showed Saif Ali Khan ( in North ) and Madhavan ( South ) in the advertisements. The advertisements show these celebrities along with the Mother and child in the usual mistaken identity theme. Since Soap is a low involvement product, so using of celebrity without a change in the overall positioning will have a positive impact to the brand. The use of celebrity make the ad sticky thus making the campaign more effective. The celebrities have also contributed in enhancing the brand imagery. Since Saif Ali Khan is more famous in North India and Madhvan in South India. So they were mainly used for their particular region. The ingredients, sandal and turmeric have been found to be more popular in the South India than in the North India. So the brand becomes more famous in South than North India and has
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become the largest selling soap brand in South India. To target northern market Santoor launched Santoor white with variant of Sandal and milk of almonds without changing its positioning.

Source Factor Analysis

Source Factor

Perception

Copy Source / Information

Cognitive Affective

Sponsors Object m Vehicles

Endorsers Objective

Behavior

Attitude

Persuasive impact

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To influence the audience through advertisement it is important information should be coming from a credible source. Credibility refers to a person's perception of the truth of a piece of information. Perception: - Indian people have belief that sandal and turmeric are useful for their skin. They have a positive perception towards these ingredients. Santoor targeted this perception of people. Since Santoors main ingredients were sandal and turmeric, so it influenced people to perceive information from advertisement. On the basis of this and a series of studies by Wipro and Draft FCB on women, santoor formulated its advertisement and source component. Peoples perception affects the source factor mix. Copy Source/ Information: - Santoor used a mix of source component. Sponsors: - Since Santoor is a brand of IT giant WIPRO, which has a good brand equity. So its advertisements are more credible. Endorsers: - Santoor used different models and celebrity for its advertisement. Since all ads of santoor are based on one theme, that is ageless skin. So mainly a female model is used with a child to give naturalness to the ads. The lady model is misjudged as a college going girl even if she is a mother. So a concept of mistaken identity is used in these ads. Santoor has also used Saif Ali Khan and Madhvan as endorsers to reach to a large audience. Since Saif Ali Khan is more famous in North India and Madhvan in South India. So they were mainly used for their particular region. It enhanced the credibility of advertisements because they are more credible in their particular region. Objects: - Since santoors main ingredient is sandal and turmeric, so there two ingredient are shown on soap cover and also in advertisements. Use of a child is also a part of this. A child is used to emphasis that the female model is looking beautiful, like a college going girl or an unmarried girl even if she is a mother of the child. Other emphasis is that the skin will become soft like the child. These objects strengthen the brand image and brand positioning of Santoor. These are adding authenticity to the brand.

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Objective: - Initially when Santoor was launched then the objective was to make audience aware of the brand and its features. So the advertisement was informative. Then objective was to reposition the brand from ingredient based to benefit based, so advertisement become transformational. To strengthen its USP (Unique Selling Proposition) as ageless skin, mistaken identity concept is used. When the objective become to promote the brand recall, then Saif Ali Khan and Madhvan were used as endorser. Vehicles:- combinations of different media vehicles are used like TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines etc. In electronic media, Santoor advertises mainly on popular entertainment TV channels and 98.3 FM Radio Mirchi. Timings are mainly in noon and in prime times. Santoors advertisement also comes on Magazines like Grih Sobha, Grih Lakshmi, Indian Women Hour etc. In newspaper generally local newspapers are used like Divya Bhashkar, Sandesh etc. These all things are source component of advertising copy and affect the consumer attitude and behavior. The ingredients, sandal and turmeric have been found to be more popular in the South India than in the North India. So the persuasive impact is more in south India and Santoor has become the largest selling soap brand in South India.

Recommendations
 So far Santoor has only used models as female endorser. Celebrities like Saif Ali khan & Madhvan are used but not any female celebrity has been used. So Santoor should use some female celebrities as endorser. Celebrities like Aishwarya Rai, Kajol can be used who are married but still looks pretty. It will strengthen their positioning and also advertisement will reach to a large audience.  Santoors should also position as a soap for unmarried youth and teenagers. So far Santoors focus has been on relatively higher age group. There are just few advertisement in which model is shown as an unmarried girl. So now they should start targeting unmarried youth and teenagers
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 Now Santoor should also target Male customers. So far they have only targeted female customers.  In Santoors soap a mom and a daughter is shown, but it is targeting only Mother. So Santoor should position as a soap for both mom & daughter.  Santoors advertisement has become monotonous & predictable. In each advertisement there is a lady who is wrongly identified as a college going girl or unmarried girl and then her daughter comes. So it has become quite monotonous & predictable. Santoor should now break this momentum and change its theme. So it will gain the focus of audience.  Nearly 70% of the country's population lives in rural areas. So Santoor should strengthen its brand image in Rural Areas through various advertisements. Media planning will play an important role there, because there is a less reach of Newspapers and Televisions. So Radio is a good media vehicle to be used.

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