The legend goes like this that the original Lifebuoy soap was primarily used for household chores such as washing clothes or cleaning the floors. However, the brand took personal hygiene to the next level by introducing the toilet bar in 1933. This special bar soap was used primarily for hand and body washing. But how was this positioning of a soap being used for personal hygiene arrived at?
Through this article, I will be sharing the laddering exercise which was followed to arrive at the above association of Health and Hygiene with a toilet soap. This exercise was replicated in a Consumer Behaviour class on the topic: “Motivation and Perception – Listening to the voice of Consumer”, and the class itself was the respondent in the exercise.
So first of all, what is laddering? Just as a ladder is designed to allow you to reach something otherwise unreachable. In the same way, “laddering” as applied to structured questioning is a technique designed to acquire nuggets of information which are otherwise very difficult to get at. Laddering is a qualitative marketing research technique, which seeks to understand why people buy and use products and services.
The exercise started with asking the class this question that what were the top three things that the class associated with soap. The top three results out of the various responses received were Freshness, Happiness and Organized. This was followed by the question that what do the attributes of Freshness, Happiness and Organized lead to, with the three major responses being Feel Good, Confidence and Health. So, Health was not directly related to a Soap, rather it had a second level of association with the use of Soap. On further probing as to what all things the class does to reach the stage of Feel Good, Confidence and Health, some of the responses were music, sports and exercise, food, sleep, money, love, travel. Thus, Soap was not found to be directly related with Health, no matter if the approach was direct or roundabout. But it had a strong second level of association with Health.
This was the approach used by Lifebuoy to land up with the positioning of a Health Soap. This is also how Lifebuoy got the pulsating jingle ‘Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan’. This jingle was created in 1964 and has stood the test of time and still sounds fresh, because of the subtle but very strong association of Health that it makes customers perceive with the brand.
An Aditya Birla Group company I would like to work for?
An industry that I find to be going through a lot of excitement currently is retail, due to the onstage of e-commerce. In the age where convenience matters more than brand and brand loyalty, companies are doing interesting innovations to remain relevant, to retain the existing customers as well as to attract newer customers into their fold. However, this has become more challenging than ever because even the white label brands and start-up brands can now pose a competition to the established brands with the use of e-commerce channel. Further, the brick and mortar stores are facing an existential threat, if not immediately, then over the course of time. It is because of this dynamic ecosystem that I want to be a part of the ADITYA BIRLA FASHION AND RETAIL LIMITED so that I also get a chance to ride on this adventurous journey to learn as well as to make some contributions.
