The Mysterious Games we Play

It was a complete Mystery; I was flummoxed at the news article after reading it, ‘HUL foxes P&G through successful Ambush Marketing’.

It was a great outdoor marketing campaign by P&G in Mumbai, and I think it did get foxed and frustrated by HUL, but the outcome of the whole melodrama that followed is still uncertain.

There were huge outdoor hoardings, model bus-stops, and full page print ads by P&G to create excitement over Pantene and its new packaging. Carefully ironed out, or so P&G envisaged. It was too open to attack, and Dove took the bold step and stepped into the fray. Kudos to HUL for getting it done ‘within a day’. I think it was more of a, ‘done within a month’ than ‘a day’. Competition intelligence as they call it, has definitely come into play here. HUL was waiting for the bait to get hooked on. But still, a campaign rolled out within a few weeks is commendable. (Brand executives would concur)

But did it achieve anything for HUL? Brand connotation with the ‘Mystery Shampoo’ is and will always be Pantene; Dove did nothing to change that.

All that HUL visualized was a retort back at P&G through the necessary buzz within everybody’s mind. They achieved the buzz, but inside the marketer’s head. The consumer was left lurking during the delivery of the Dove message. (‘There is no Mystery, Dove is the No.1 Shampoo’)

Marketing circles were talking about it for weeks, I should know, I was there. But the real consumer, the actual user of the brand & the product didn’t see any value in the fracas between HUL and P&G.

Sadly, this event might in the short run; temporarily, end such campaigns, where the consumer is kept at the edge of his/her seat before the prized message is communicated.