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Vinay Kamath

Chennai , Oct. 20

HENKEL Spic India Ltd has extended its dishwash liquid brand, Pril, the market leader in the category, to a dishwash bar.

Mr A. Satishkumar, Managing Director, told Business Line that in its bar avatar, Pril has been launched in two variants — lime and vinegar and orange and vinegar as both combinations are strong cleaning agents.

Explaining the rationale for extending the Pril brand to a dishwash bar, Mr Satishkumar said that while Pril dominated the liquid dishwash solutions market with a 70 per cent market share, it is a relatively expensive product and a small category of barely 1,000 tonnes a year.

However, the dishwash bar market is much larger at 1.2 lakh tonnes a year, a category which HLL's Vim dominates with a 74 per cent market share. "Liquids like Pril are efficient; it's a concentrate and relatively expensive and so it's a slow-growing category at 10-15 per cent a year. The market will take time to evolve from powders to bars and then to liquids," he said.

Henkel undertook an intensive study, which involved talking to housewives about their dish-washing patterns and learnt that as products like Pril were expensive, they were reluctant to give it to maid servants to use and preferred scourers with an abrasive action.

"While dishwash liquids do work efficiently against grease, consumers prefer scourers with an abrasive action to clean grease, so we decided to launch a bar," explains Mr Satishkumar.

Priced at Rs 14 for a 400 gm bar, the two variants of the Pril bar has been developed entirely by the local company's R&D unit for the Indian market and not an import from its German parent.

The bar has been designed with rounded edges so that use of the bar from its centre does not form a "mini pit" during use. Pril liquid has also been launched in an orange variant, apart from the existing lime.

Henkel has roped in Chef Sanjeev Kapoor to endorse the brand. Apart from appearing in commercials, he will endorse the Pril bar at his cookery demos.

Mr Satishkumar said that the bar has been distributed in the South and the West and will be made national across one lakh outlets by mid-November. The Rs 5-crore multi-media campaign, across TV and press, is expected to break early next month. Henkel targets a volume of 10,000 tonnes and a market share of 25 per cent two years on. The challenge, says Mr Satishkumar, is to transfer the strong equity of Pril to dishwash bars.

Dishwash category froths over

THE liquid dishwash category, in which Pril has a 70 per cent market share, is a small one at 1,000 tonnes a year and worth Rs 10 crore and growing at a nick of 10 per cent a year.

In contrast, the dishwash bar category is huge: it's a Rs 300-crore market churning out 1.2 lakh tonnes a year and growing at a CAGR of 20 per cent in the last five years. The dishwash powders market, however, is shrinking — it has fallen by 50 per cent from 3 lakh tonnes five years ago.

Mr Satishkumar, MD, Henkel Spic India Ltd, points out that it's a process of evolution for the market.

However, despite the small size of the dishwash liquid market, it has not stopped a host of players from being present in the category: Vim, Godrej, Sabena, Teepol are some of the brands that are vying for a share of the pie. Even in the dishwash bar category, competition is intense. While HLL's Vim has a 70 per cent share, it has to contend with Pril and brands like Sabena — the latter has extended from powders to bars and liquids. CavinKare too has taken a plunge into this category and launched a dishwash bar called EverGLow at two price points, Rs 7 for 200 gm and Rs 14 for 400 gm.

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Henkel extends Pril to dishwash bar — Ropes in Sanjeev Kapoor to endorse brand

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