It is very easy to kill a brand or weaken its positioning. Ignore it, reduce investment and within no time, the brand will fade away from consumer's mind. But to bring a brand from obscurity to stardom is a Herculean task.
Cinthol is one such iconic brand which now has the daunting task of bringing the old glory back. The neglected 60 year old brand from Godrej's stable saw some activity in 2008 when the brand was re-packaged and Hrithik Roshan was introduced to endorse the brand. The brand also saw a new tagline " Don't Stop" . Some hope was restored about the brand's future. But alas, the enthusiasm was temporary and the campaign died down. For the last couple of years, the brand went again into slumber except for some sporadic campaigns.
Now with much hope, the brand owners have decided ONCE AGAIN to reposition Cinthol. The brand will be launching the new campaign soon .
Watch the new ad here : Cinthol campaign
The brand has hit upon a new idea " Being Alive is Awesome ". The ad is targeted at the younger consumers who wants to live their life to the fullest and the brand has tried to squeeze itself in the entire scheme of things. In a sense, the tagline represents the brand essence of a very active lifestyle. But the question is did the brand used the earlier positioning of " Don't Stop" to the maximum ? These frequent changes in the tagline and the positioning has affected this brand by confusing the consumers with different messages and brand promises.
I feel that in the new campaign , the brand is trying little too hard to relate to the new generation. For a brand like Cinthol, it need to resist from trying hard to convince. The lyrics and the singing ( rather screaming) gives me a feeling that the brand is desperate to connect to the new generation consumers. That desperation is sadly visible in the campaign. For example the term awesome is a very visible and obvious attempt to show that the brand is young. But why try hard ?
To be fair to the brand, it is a smart idea for the brand to go back to the classic form factor and packaging. The classic Cinthol comes in the rectangular bathing bar form while the variants came in the usual soap form with rounded edges. The brand had earlier retained the traditional paper wrapper to the Classic Cinthol and used the common plastic pack for the variants. Here in the new avatar, the brand uses the rectangular bar form in all the variants and the packaging is also same as that of Classic Cinthol soap. The form factor can give the brand a unique identity.
Alive is Awesome as a positioning platform makes sense. I hope that in subsequent campaigns, the brand will take this concept to a higher level. Sadly the experience so far suggest that after the initial spurt, the brand has a tendency to go to hibernation. And when it rises again, then there will be a new agency and a new positioning.
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