Santoor – The Advertising Journey

Santoor recently became No. 1 soap brand in India, overtaking the long-term war horse of Hindustan Unilever, Lifebuoy.

My association with Santoor started in1994. If you had then asked me if Santoor would one day become bigger than Lux or Lifebuoy I would have probably said ‘never’. In fact, Santoor in the 1990s was not even among the top five soap brands of India. Taking on the might of HUL was not something that was meant for the weak-hearted.

A lot has been written in e4m about the rise of Santoor. How they did not boil the ocean, but went about building the brand state by state; how when many brands were metro-city focused Santoor decided to stay focused on small towns and rural India; how the brand created SKUs like the Rs 10 pack, etc.

One of the key features that aided Santoor’s rise was the continued focus on a proven marketing communication playbook. From a distance, it may appear that the brand’s advertising custodians were just filling up old wine in new bottles every two years. But it was a lot more than that. 

The move to benefit story (younger-looking skin thanks to Sandal and Turmeric) was something that the ad agency Ulka had developed in1989 when the brand moved its ad account to the agency from Everest. The first two ads did work well (book-shop & marriage). The idea of a married woman getting mistaken for a younger woman, the little daughter breaking the mirage with her ‘mummy’, surprised onlookers (iski twacha se is ki umar ka pata nahi chalta) worked very well. But after three or four renditions of the story, the brand’s sales growth plateaued.

The big question was ‘what should Santoor advertising be now?’. Should we abandon the YLS (younger looking skin) story, should we drop the little girl (and her mummy squeal)? These were just some of the questions facing the agency and the client.

The agency team felt that the story had legs but needed a change in direction. The ‘wedding’ story was getting worn out. Can a new thread be started that can give the brand a new thrust? After much debate and deliberation, the client agreed to invest in not one but two very different interpretations of the YLS-Mummy story (I have narrated the story in full in my book ‘Spring – Bouncing Back From Rejection’). One film showed the Santoor mom in a music shop, the other showed her in an aerobics class. The calculated risk paid off. Much against all predictions, the Aerobics film started working well. Will a middle-class woman from small town India be able to relate to a mom wearing leotards and dancing to Jazz music? The power of visualization worked. The power of aspiration worked.

The aerobics film gave Santoor a new direction. The Santoor woman was no longer confined to a wedding mandap. She was ready to take on the world - in her own terms. She was going to play cricket with her daughter. She was going to teach her how to do the Hula-Hoop.

Over the years, the Santoor woman became a dress designer, a photographer, a choreographer, a musician and even a pilot. Male celebrities came into the storyline as admirers. Over the last 30 years, the brand must have done well over 40 films. All of them stayed true to the core promise of YLS.  And the result is there to see. Let me end with a quote from a true Indian advertising legend:

“What separates one brand from another is its unique promise of value and this is what the customer hooks on to. But if the message keeps changing from time to time the customer (and others) will no longer know what the brand stands for and what to expect. Which is why consistency is almost like a lifeline for the longevity of any brand…So when I do come across advertising like the Santoor campaign which stands out with grace over a long period of time, I think it deserves a round of applause. It’s a very simple thought. It appeals to every human’s desire to keep looking young. It is special because with every new release they manage to add freshness and newness to the same old thought.”

-- Observations made about Santoor as a brand by A G Krishnamurthy in his book, The Invisible CEO

Ambi Parameswaran is an advertising / branding veteran, best-selling author of 12 books. As ED/CEO of FCB Ulka, he and his team handled the advertising journey of Santoor from the 1990s to 2016.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com)