HUL kisses Liril Girls goodbye; turns family way

FMCG major HUL, known for launching starlets popularly known as 'Liril Girls' through advertisements for its lemon soap, is now charting a different strategy to tap family audience, keeping in tune with changing times.

Liril soap, which was recently relaunched, is now targeting a wider audience with the brand tailored to appeal to the entire family -- a change from the earlier times, when the likes of Karen Lunel, Preity Zinta, Tara Sharma and Deepika Padukone were made the face of the brand focusing on the youth segment.

While HUL did not respond to queries, the firm's advertising agency Lowe Lintas said the change in strategy was prompted by the evolution that the market has undergone.

"In the last decade or so, freshness has become generic to the personal wash category and, lime and lemony fragrances are being used by any and all brands. Clearly, the consumer and the market has moved on," Lowe Lintas executive director Joseph George told PTI.

"We also decided that in order to broad base its appeal (and fortunately our proposition allowed us to do so), we should make the brand appeal to the entire family," he added.

The idea was to leverage Liril's premium heritage and find a new consumer benefit in skin cleansing to make the brand relevance to its audience once again, he added.

"Today, the premium end of the skin cleansing market is moving to skin care benefits. So, we looked at how we could interpret Liril's core equity of freshness, plus added new benefit of soft skin (due to Aloe Vera) as a skin care benefit," George said.

The campaign for the new avtaar of the soap, Liril 2000, focuses on family by highlighting the combination of fresh, clean skin and soft skin.

"In communication, this translated into 'Every part of the body becoming soft, fresh and touchable'," he said.