Dettol Squeezy: Teaching India the Dettol habit

Vibha Gupta and Jitender Dabas

Source: WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Entrant, 2016
Downloaded from WARC

This case study shows how Dettol Squeezy, a hand-sanitizer brand, overtook its biggest competitor in
India by creating an anthem to engage its audience with.

Dettol India was on the back-foot with archrival Lifebuoy in the battle of mass penetration, and for
the launch of Squeezy, it wanted to arrest its two-year share loss to Lifebuoy.
The brand created a hand-washing anthem to teach the wider Indian audience to take up the
habit of washing their hands before eating.
The campaign used TVCs, radio, POS, digital and on-ground activities, including deploying its
product during one of the biggest religious events in the world.
The brand saw an almost 4% increase in market share.

Campaign Details
Brand owner: Reckitt Benckiser India Pvt Ltd
Agency: McCann Worldgroup India
Brand: Dettol Squeezy
Country: India
Industry: Bath toiletries, soaps
Channels: Internet - display, Magazines - consumer, Newspapers, Online video, Print - general, unspecified,
Public relations, Radio, Social media, Sponsorship - event, property, Television
Budget: 3 - 5 million

Executive Summary
In 2015, Dettol India was on the back-foot with archrival Lifebuoy in the battle of mass penetration. Not only was
Lifebuoy cheaper and more exciting than Dettol, it had also emerged as a formidable antibacterial player. With
the launch of Squeezy, Dettol wanted to arrest its two-year share loss to Lifebuoy and regain germ-kill
supremacy. Through an interjection based strategy and using the teaching power of music, Dettol became a
good habit for mass India to practice, overtaking Lifebuoy in the hand hygiene segment.

Market background and cultural context

The Battle Of Market Share & Supremacy In The Handwash Segment

In India, the liquid handwash category was growing at the rate of 21% per annum and both RB's Dettol and
Unilever's Lifebuoy were vying for brand supremacy in the segment. The category was growing downwards, with
maximum growth coming from the lower end of the spectrum- the small town India.

Dettol was on back-foot, losing share to Lifebuoy continuously for the last 2 years. Dettol desperately needed to
increase penetration and reclaim lost ground to Lifebuoy. After a one-year lag, Dettol was launching Squeezy, its
own entry in an attempt to arrest the share loss to Lifebuoy.

Challenges To Dettol Penetration In The Economy Segment:

Challenge #1: Mass India was Lifebuoy bastion

Lifebuoy strength was its presence and acceptability in small towns and rural India. It was the brand for the
hardworking masses of India. With economic pricing, Lifebuoy had a loyal following in the dominantly single-
soap-brand households. Dettol on the other hand was the pricey, more expensive, urban cousin and struggled
to enter the small town household.

How do we win the penetration battle on Lifebuoy's home turf?

Challenge #2: Lifebuoy had strong germ kill equity

Dettol had been talking about germ protection for more than 75 years. While it had a strong germ kill equity,
Lifebuoy had upped its ante and was now a formidable anti-bacterial player. With grass-root initiatives like 'Help
a child reach 5' and claims of protection against 10 dangerous illnesses, Lifebuoy was now leading the
conversation in hand hygiene segment while Dettol was witnessing a decline in trial rate [Source: Client Data].
How do we strengthen our equity promise enough to ensure germ kill supremacy?

Challenge #3: Unfavourable combination of being less exciting and more expensive

Lifebuoy was the most exciting handwash brand having an innovative product line up - superfast handwash,
colour changing handwash, etc. which generated excitement among kids – the key influencers of the hand wash
category. Dettol on the other hand had no new news in the handwash space, and was always talking to the
Mother. Add to that, Dettol was more expensive than Lifebuoy. Even our lowest priced offering in the new Dettol
Squeezy was still at a 20% price premium against Lifebuoy's mass offering. So neither the kids remembered us
nor did mothers prefer us.

How do we strike up an exciting conversation with kids while becoming relevant to the mother?

To summarize our challenge:

With the launch of its own economy pack squeezy, Dettol was entering lifebuoy's home turf in an attempt to
reclaim lost supremacy.
Objectives
A lot was riding on the new pack launch of Dettol Squeezy. Our task was cut out for us: Launch the new Dettol
Squeezy successfully. The key metrics were:

Share gain vs. Lifebuoy

Germ protection equity scores during the given period

Insight and strategic thinking

We were talking to masses across small town India. And we wanted to tell them to wash hands with Dettol
Squeezy.

We realized that if we really wanted to win the penetration battle we had to do something fundamental. We
decided to study mass India's hand hygiene habits and practices in order to identify a sweet spot for Dettol
Squeezy. Our research revealed a unique behavioural truth about us Indians when it came to cleanliness:

Intent Over Result & Rituals As The Escape Route

We found that Indians had mastered the art of bypassing correct habits with token rituals. For e.g. instead of
washing hands with soap & water before eating, people were happy just passing their hands through water or
dusting their hands together as a symbolic gesture for cleaning hands before eating. We took pride in the
intention to clean and were not so concerned with the actual outcome. So ingrained was this shortcut, that we
hardly seemed to notice it.

We realized that before we could make Dettol a habit, we had to make hand washing a habit.

The truth about habits is that, good habits are always taught and are formed over a period of time. We also
realized that fear was not a long-term motivator for behaviour change.

While the current category communication paradigm focused on highlighting the consequences of not using
handwash as impending diseases and painted a grim picture of fatal illnesses, it still wasn't enough to bring
about a habit change. The thumb rule of behaviour change is that positive reinforcement leads to a better
outcome than negative threat.

Armed with this insight into behaviour change we set out to change mass India's hand hygiene habits.

We decided to shift the axis of conversation from superiority claims to actual behaviour change
resulting in healthy habit formation.

Our Idea: stubborn habits require repeated interjections to change.

We decided to interrupt the current behaviour and attack the convenient but unhygienic social rituals that were
coming in the way of corrective behaviour.

Our Approach:
Creative and/or channel execution
In order to teach India the Dettol habit, the first thing that we did was to identify a singular, defining action that
would become the brand signifier. Washing hands with soap and water before eating is the holy grail of hand
hygiene. We decided to champion this good habit and coded Dettol as central to the behaviour.

We followed a 3-pronged approach to teach this good habit to mass India:

1. Interrupt the current behaviour: We followed an Interjection-Based Strategy, where the wrong
behaviour was interrupted in such a way that it brought a forced change in thinking and immediate
corrective action. Every time a person was observed bypassing the act of washing hands with soap &
water, they were interrupted and the gap in behaviour was highlighted.
2. Message through children: The category was coded in talking to kids and was selling hand wash
through them, we decided to make them the champions. The habit of washing hands was omitted/ by-
passed as much by adults, as by kids. It was a good advice to give, but was not always followed. We
decided to make kids the flag bearers of a good habit – that of washing hands before eating, anytime,
anywhere. They became the spokesperson for interjecting and highlighting the errant behaviour.
3. Music: Music is a proven learning tool. Repetitive text in the form of chants and rhymes have formed the
basis of big schools of learning – religion and foundation literacy. Singing aloud is a form of teaching in
Indian schools. We decided to create a memorable, hummable, action-oriented anthem to help spread the
message of washing hands before eating.

Armed with our execution strategy we went on to select our media mix:

Television: Unleashing Dettol's habit change anthem. Still the most popular mass media, television became
our lead medium in establishing Dettol Squeezy handwash as the first step before eating.
On-Ground: Walking the talk – changing habits at the grass root

A massive on-ground activation was done at the Nasik Kumbh. The two month long Kumbh, takes place after
every 12years, and is the single largest congregation of religious pilgrims on the planet. People from all over the
country, especially the hinterland, descend at Nasik in the belief that a holy dip in river Godavari, will cleanse
their soul. This year more than 100 milllion people were expected to participate in the Nashik Kumbh. The
highlight of the message was to promote the habit of washing hands before eating. Instead of doing a one-time
meal branding of food, we deployed an army of Dettol champions who enabled people to wash hands before
eating and after using lavatories, along with other Dettol formats.

Radio: The Perfect Reminder

Radio was used extensively to play our Squeezy Anthem at the Kumbh Venue before mealtimes to remind
people to wash hands correctly with Dettol before eating.

Retail: Announcing the new Launch

Since it was a new product launch, point-of-sale retail collaterals announced the benefits of the new Dettol
Squeezy were used.

Digital media was used to support mass media efforts.

Throughout the launch, the communication tone was engaging and refrained from being instructing or preachy.

Performance against objectives

Dettol was singing & teaching and India was fast learning the new Dettol Habit of washing hands.

#1. Within 3 months of launch, Dettol squeezy overtook the year old established lifebuoy economy
handwash!

Source: Nielsen Brand Track

#2. Leading to a turnaround for Dettol in overall hand hygiene space

After 24 months of losing market share, Dettol turned the tide in overall Handwash market.
Source: Nielsen Brand Track

#3. Squeezy also helped strengthen Dettol's core – it's germ kill credentials

Our friendly warm way of teaching a habit was proving more effective in educating about germ-kill than LB's
messaging around fear of death with diarrhea.

Source: Nielsen Brand Track

#4. Resulting in highest ever brand penetration for Dettol!

A 1.6 % jump in penetration means reaching an additional 3.2 million households

Source: Nielsen Brand Track

Why is this result significant?

Dettol was losing its share to Lifebuoy for the last 2 years. However with the successful Squeezy launch, Dettol
is now back on top in the hand hygiene segment!
Lessons learned
How do you sell LHW to a culture that gives more importance to the intention of cleaning than the actual act?
How do you ingrain brand in culture in a manner that it becomes a norm?

Conventional category wisdom and our own historical communication practice were pointing towards a
competitive, rational, claims-led strategy. But we realized that we needed to something more fundamental. By
making Dettol Squeezy a habit through interjections & music, we not only achieved successful launch, but also
paved the road to recovery for Dettol in India.

© Copyright WARC 2016

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