Commercial of the year!!

The Nike Ad which came first in the All About Ads countdown 2007 in NDTV. Amazing creative worth every penny spent on it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpvuz8gg79Q

Shampoos off the shelf

With the fmcgs looking for new ways to beat each other in every area, the channel wars has taken a turn with companies actively concentrating on the Chemist channel for future growth. Unlike the rural distribution where Unilever's enjoys a pan-india presence this channel provides an even ground where no clear winner has emerged till now. With a pharmacy every 50 meteres in major cities it, provides a unique challenge where the lesser volumes would still command a lot of resources in terms of Point of sale activities, in store promotions apart form the actual distribution costs.

L'Oreal uses this channel to cross sell its shampoos along with its other personal care products. While P & G and Unilevers are battling it out to win it of the shelf. This necessitates innovations in terms of the schemes offered to the retailers and also in terms of packaging in order to increase off take. In a high impulse purchase category like shampoos packaging forms the biggest challenge and P & G seems to have found the answer with the new look Head and Shoulders which has a unsymmetrical shape taking a dig at the curious customer who would like to hold the bottle. The job is half done once the product is touched by the consumer. Similarly Loreal's Garnier range of shampoos with its distinctive fluorescent green color grabs the attention of the visitor and has managed to attain a fair level of visibility.

Still the availability seems to be the biggest problem for the chemists who frequently complain of a stock out situation. Currently P & G has managed a very decent distribution of its products through the chemist channel whereas HUL is still in an capability building stage. With not even one third of this channel tapped and a huge avenue for increased sales of personal care products through this channel a huge churn can be expected with companies spending a lot to win the battle.