Friday, April 27, 2007

Tired brands: Pears Soap

Failing to hit the present taste
Pears Soap was not, by most accounts, a conventional brand failure. Indeed, it was one of the longest-running brands in marketing history. The soap was named after ondon hairdresser !ndrew Pears, who patented its transparent design in "#$%. &uring the reign of 'ueen (ictoria, Pears Soap became one of the first products in the )* to gain a coherent brand identity through intensive advertising. Indeed, the man behind Pears Soaps early promotional efforts, Thomas + ,arratt, has often been referred to as -the father of modern advertising. .ndorsements were used to promote the brand. /or instance, Sir .rasmus0ilson, President of the 1oyal 2ollege of Surgeons, guaranteed that Pears Soap possessed -the properties of an efficient yet mild detergent without any of the ob3ectionable properties of ordinary soaps. ,arrat also helped Pears Soap break into the )S market by getting the hugely influencial religious leader 4enry 0ard ,eecher to e5uate cleanliness, and Pears particularly, with 6odliness. 7nce this had been achieved ,arratt bought the entire front page of the 8ew 9ork 4erald in order to show off this incredible testimonial. The -,ubbles campaign, featuring an illustration of a baby boy bathed in bubbles, was particularly successful and established Pears as a part of everyday life on both sides of the !tlantic. 4owever, ,arratt recogni:ed the ever changing nature of marketing. -Tastes change, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them, the Pears advertising man said in a "%;# interview. -!n idea that was effective a generation ago would fall flat, stale, and unprofitable if presented to the public today. 8ot that the idea of today is always better than the older idea, but it is different < it hits the present taste. Throughout the first half of the =;th century, Pears remained the leading soap brand in the )*. 4owever, towards the end of the century the market was starting to radically evolve.

In an 7ctober =;;" article in the 6uardian, >adeleine ,unting charted our love affair with soap? 7ver the past ";; years, soap has reflected the development of consumer culture. Some of the earliest brand names were given to soap@ it was one of the first massproduced goods to be packaged and the sub3ect of some of the earliest ad campaigns. Its manufacturers pioneered market research@ the first T( ads were for soap@ soap operas, tales of domestic melodrama, were so named because they were often sponsored by soap companies. Soap made men rich < 0illiam 4esketh ever, the AAyear-old who built Port Sunlight Bwhere Pears was producedC, for one < and it is no coincidence that two of the worlds oldest and biggest multinationals, )nilever and Procter D 6amble, rose to power on the back of soap. 1ecently though, ,unting argued, a change has emerged. The mass-produced block has been abandoned for its li5uid versions < shower gels, body washes and li5uid soap dispensers. -In pursuit of our ideal of cleanliness, the soap bar has been deemed unhygienic, she claimed. 7f course, this was troubling news for the Pears Soap brand and, by the end of the last century, its market share of the soap market had dropped to a low of A per cent. >arketing fell to almost :ero. Then came the fatal blow. 7n == /ebruary =;;; parent company )nilever announced it was to discontinue the Pears brand. The cost-saving decision was part of a broader strategy by )nilever to concentrate on E;; -power brands and to terminate the other ",=;;. 7ther brands for the chop included 1adion washing powder and 4armony hairspray. So why had Pears lost its powerF 0ell, the shift towards li5uid soaps and shower gels was certainly a factor. ,ut )nilever held onto &ove, another soap bar brand, which still fares eGceptionally well. )ltimately, Pears was a brand built on advertising and when that advertising support was taken away, the brand identity gradually became irrelevant. !fter years of staying ahead, Pears Soap had failed to -hit the present taste as Thomas + ,arratt might have put it.

Lessons from Pears

.very brand has its time. Pears Soap was a historical success, but the product became incompatible with contemporary trends and tastes. !dvertising can help build a brand. ,ut brands built on advertising generally need advertising to sustain them.