But let me come straight to the point. Do you think the best quality product will survive only on the basis of its quality? If your ans is YES then you need to look at this case and if the ans is NO then you will find this post interesting to read.
Boroline - a 80 years old brand from kolkata based GD Phramaceutical Ltd. The name Boroline has been derived from its ingredients “Boric” and “Oline” as a variant of the latin word ‘oleam’ meaning oil. Boroline was a house hold name in Indiaespecially in the eastern part. Consumers use this brand for different purpose i.e. to cure cuts and stitches after operation and also as a cold cream during winter to protect skin.Till mid eighties Boroline was an undisputed market leader with almost 100% market share in antiseptic cream market. Again there was no concept of specialised creams in the market at that time. Today this position is taken away by Boroplus which enjoys 60% market share in 220 cr. antiseptic cream market. The other products which are giving stiff competition are Borosoft and Boro Natural – both from the maverick marketer Paras Phrama - Today market share of Boroline has slipped below 20%.
In spite of being the best quality product in antiseptic cream category, the marketers of Boroline failed to upgrade its product to attract the new age customer. Today most of the users of this product are old aged people.
Some factors which went against the Brand - Boroline
First and the main factor which went against the Boroline was its oiliness.
Second factor was its fuddy-duddy package, the dark green colored package which was never changed since it was launched. So it was not appealing to the buyers and was not Pick-me up for consumers.
These factors were recognized by the Emami group and entered the market with the Boroplus. Boroplus was positioned with an Aurvedic touch, with a white and purple packing which was solely used as eye-catching pick-me up for consumers. When it comes to formulation as I said, Boroplus was positioned as Ayurvedic formulation where as Boroline was positioned as Perfumed anti-septic and were lip-bouned when it comes to formulation.
Then the name BoroPluse conveyed the message of Value addition. Boroplus people branded it with aggression where as Boroline people branded it only on the basis of Quality.As a result, today Boroline has just remained a brand with higher brand awareness but lower convertibility. They also failed to understand importance of advertising in building a brand. Apart from “Khusbuwala Cream” radio jingle, I can not recall any other form of advertising of this brand. The case of Boroline clearly gives insight that in today’s age brand can not be made only on the quality factor. It requires the perfect blend of quality, packaging, pricing and most importantly management’s concern about brand management.
In the next Posst will probably continue the Boro-War with the third Brand Borosoft.
PS: As updated in sept, 2010, the BORPLUS brand enjoys the market share of 74% in 269 crore Boro antiseptic market. *
* Data from Sify.com
