Mudra's job was to get the new player in the detergent market upstage the ruling leader - Surf. No mean task this, considering the consumer was complacent with using the same powder detergent for generations….

Consumer inertia was the biggest obstacle Mudra had to clear while carving out a brand campaign for Henko Stain Champion Powder when it launched in 1994 in south India.

While it was positioned in the premium segment of detergents, Henko had the unenviable task of making users, attuned to using the Surf brand, to try the new entrant. Mudra countered the twin challenge of reducing the chance of attrition by competitive compact detergents and making the current Surf Wash Booster user try Henko by creating a distint 'premium and brand' persona for the young player.

In the second phase, when Henko was relaunched in 2000 with a new packaging and new advertising, the task in front of the agency was now to build a loyalty base for the brand. This is did by creating dissonance in the Surf user's mind and positioning Henko as a better option. Banking on the insight that the usage of Surf was more a habit than a conviction oriented action, the brand targeted at today's generation of young women, who want more contemporary solutions for traditional problems. The television commercial developed for Henko focused on 25 to 40 year old housewives from SEC A, B and C households - with a young woman who helped her mother drive away clothes stains with Henko, rather than the traditional 'blue detergent'.

The media strategy, says Mudra, was focused on addressing Surf users' media habits through their choice of channels/programmes. 'During the concentrated bursts of Henko Stain Champion, the strategy was to outshout Surf in those channels/programmes for the first six weeks and then use shorter edits for frequency and top of mind recall.' The result - the brand touched volumes averaging 800 tons per month and touched a volume base of 1000 tons in October 2001.

The Kerala trick

The agency aimed straight at the local Malayalee's heart with a commercial that used a popular serial actress Rashmi Soman to capitalize on Henko's popularity in the state. The scenes showed a grandmother staining her sari with betelnut juice, the ad interspersed with a kathakalli sequence and the courtyard of the tharawad (ancestral home) to get the brand emotionally closer to the Malayalee through a mix of cable and satellite channels in early 2001. The strategy worked - brand volumes shot up from 83 tons per month to 150 tons, coupled with a pride of association that was earlier reserved for the predecessor - Surf.