Competitor Analysis

About Lowe: Lowe is a full service advertising agency; Television, Radio, Print,
Outdoor & Digital.
Lowe opened up its headquarters in 1951 in Karachi, Pakistans business driven.
The second office was positioned in Lahore in 1995 which is the countrys cultural
hub in Lahore.
We have grown with our nation, its brands, its consumers and our industry!

Lowe is a High Value Ideas company. Their ideas and vision have enabled them to
build brands like Lipton, Fair n Lovely, Clear, Surf Excel, Lifebuoy, Vim e.t.c

Sunlight: Sunlight is one of the brands of Unilever Pakistan. Unilever Pakistan
enjoys a leading position in most of its core Home and Personal Care and Foods
categories, e.g. Personal Wash, Personal Care, Laundry, Beverages (Tea) and Ice
Cream.
The company operates through 5 regional offices, 4 wholly owned and 6 third
party manufacturing sites across Pakistan.
Building on its heritage of being the worlds first skin lightening brand, Fair &
Lovely brings expert fairness to the Pakistani consumer.

History of Sunlight: Sunlight bar was launched in Kenya in the late 1950's as
a pure, mild, gentle multipurpose soap. It has gained a heritage in cleaning &
caring such that mothers even use it for their new born babies. In August 2002,
Sunlight washing powder was launched in Kenya in sachets of 500g, 200g and 50g
sizes. The Soap formula was invented by a Chemist named William Hough
Watson. 128Yrs Later Sunlight washing powder has had the privilege of gracing
homes across the Globe, with its unmistakable fragrance leaving clothes fresh all
day and making every wash unexpectedly delightful!
Vairiants of Sunlight:
The brand is available in detergent powder format & has two variants:
Lemon and orange
Lemon and thousand flowers
Competitors of Sunlight:
The competitors of Sunlight are:
Brite Maximum Power
Bonus Tristar
Express Power

Brite Maximum Power: is a Premium Detergent, for the Smart & Intelligent
Housewives, containing the power of Stain Magnets providing a perfect 1 wash
solution for the toughest stains
Bonus Tristar: is a value-for-money laundry product for every household,
providing brilliant cleaning performance vs. laundry soaps and unbranded powder
at a much lower price. Its Tristar formula gives you superior cleaning, ease of
wash and leaves a pleasant fragrance on your clothes
Express Power: is a leading brand which contains stain fighting enzymes to give
you clean, bright, superior wash at an economical price.

Marketing Campaigns:
The marketing of Sunlight washing powder is done through different
advertisements with celebrity endorsements like Salman Khan, Shan and Noor to
build brand equity.


(Published in the September-October 2011 issue of Aurora.)
Unilever Pakistan seems to be in the process of reviving some of its old brands.
The long-forgotten Vim was re-launched earlier this year, and more recently the
laundry brand Sunlight has been brought back to the market. In the 70s and 80s,
Sunlight was available as a laundry bar but was then discontinued in the late 90s,
until it re-emerged in June this year as a laundry detergent.
The present day laundry market is vastly different from that of two decades ago.
With a volume share of 600,000 tonnes and valued at Rs 54 billion, the category is
divided between laundry bars (60% share) and laundry detergents (40% share).
Within laundry detergents, branded products account for an 80% market share
with Surf Excel, Bonus and Ariel being the major players. In recent years, the
share of laundry detergents has increased significantly, with at least five to 10% of
people in Pakistan converting from laundry bars to detergent on an annual basis.
Sunlight was relaunched as a detergent and not a bar.
He explains that in terms of laundry usage, Pakistan can roughly be divided into
three kinds of households: those that use laundry bars, those that use detergents
and those that use both.
As a trend, laundry conversion is a graduated process; those using unbranded
soap will first convert to branded soap, then to a mass level detergent and then
move further up the ladder, perhaps eventually consuming a premium branded
detergent such as Surf Excel or Ariel. Thus it is households that are either
currently using soap or both soap and detergent that are most likely to give
Sunlight a go.
The launch of Sunlight also rounds off Unilever Pakistans laundry portfolio. The
laundry market is generally divided into mass, mid-tier and premium brands
based on price. The company already had a brand presence in both the premium
and mid-tier (Surf Excel and Rin respectively).
Malik explains that Sunlight fills that space [in the mass category] where Unilever
was not present at this point in time.
The relaunched Sunlight is available in two variants (lemon and thousand flowers;
and lemon and orange) and two SKUs: the one kilogramme pack (Rs 95) and the
sachet (Rs 25). The marketing and advertising for the brand is strongly focused on
the fragrance aspect based on research which shows that the bottom of the
pyramid consumer is looking for a good wash and superior sensorials.
Taking these factors into account, Lowe & Rauf (Sunlights creative and media
agency) developed a campaign which communicates that Sunlight turns the
ordinary laundry experience into a delightful experience, says Malik.
This is emphasised through the functional message of the product which is leemo
ki taaqat aur hazaaron phoolon ki khushboo to highlight its fragrance. Actors
Shaan and Noor were used for the TVC because research suggested that these
two stars were most popular among this segment in addition to being people the
target audience could relate to.
Controversially, the TVC is an almost frame by frame replica of Wheels
(Unilevers mass laundry brand in India) ad which features Salman Khan, the
reason being, according to Raheel Hashmi, Senior Account Manager, Lowe & Rauf
that Wheel is Unilever Hindustans mass market brand; we have used the same
idea, we have just adapted it to our local culture.
However, the ad campaign is the least of Sunlights problems. On the local front,
it competes not only with laundry bar brands, but with Colgate-Palmolives mega
laundry brand, Bonus, which has a 20% share of the overall laundry market. In
spite of citing Bonus as the main competitor, Sunlight is priced Rs 25 higher than
Bonus. Considering that the target market is extremely price sensitive, can this
work in Sunlights favour?
Malik says that while Sunlight consumers cannot afford a premium brand, they
are not looking for the cheapest product either.
They are looking for the best product within their budget and that is what
Sunlight offering.
Having been absent from the market for some time, Sunlight has its work cut out
in terms of gaining market share. It seems to have all its bases covered with
regard to establishing its identity as a brand but it remains to be seen if fragrance
and performance can help it win or will it be price only that will matter in the
end?