Ujala - The Supreme Whitener

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Marketing Ujala Contd...

Ujala's liquid whitener, the first innovative product in the fabric whitener segment, offered consumers a number of advantages over its 'powder blue' counterparts. Unlike the powder versions, liquid whitener was easily and uniformly soluble in water, thus giving much better results. Instead of dissolving in the water, powder blues often formed clots, leading to wastage. Since Ujala was a liquid, it did not have any such disadvantage (while Robin sold 'Ultramarine Blue,' Ujala was an 'Insta-Violet Concentrate' that was essentially acid milling violet). Another aspect, which helped Ujala gain market share, was its focus on rural markets, the primary markets for fabric whiteners. The fact that Robin had neglected this market and remained primarily an urban phenomenon worked to Ujala's advantage. Jyothi's rural distribution network, which made Ujala available through 4,000 distributors and 2.5 million retailers across the country, was considered to be one of the strongest in India.

Commenting on Jyothi's 'Indian way of doing things,' Ullas Kamath (Ullas), Director (Finance), said, “A general manager in a multinational probably has the same function of a field staff in our organization.” The field staff of the organization enjoyed a close relationship with shop owners throughout the country. Ullas remarked that this strategy of direct marketing, which Jyothi had followed from the very beginning, had paid off handsomely. The company did not rely on surveys done by research firms even for market information on products. Instead, it always utilized its vast network of field staff to regularly collect information from the market. This formed its basis for market intelligence.

Ujala's initial success came through word-of-mouth publicity. Later, the advertising account of the company was handled by the Mumbai-based advertising agency Situations Advertising and Marketing Services. Innovative radio advertisements made the brand quite popular in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Ujala followed a common advertisement theme for the country as a whole, but 'regionalized' the content of the advertisements in terms of the language used and (sometimes) the models employed.

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