Going Natural

I saw this print ad for Odomos naturals day before, it was a huge half page ad, with a kid arm wrestling with another kid (this kid being made of mosquitoes…gross but enough to make a parent paranoid). It said its non sticky and smells nice and is non allergic.

Later on during the day, I saw another naturals ad, with Vidya Balan in a park, seductively confiding to the camera the new cream repellant is…the same three things….
 non sticky, smells nice, non allergic. So far so good. But after seeing the same ad 4-5 times during one movie break, something odd struck me. This ad was not for Odomos, but for Good Knight naturals.

After some light digging up, I realized that the news of the launch of these two campaigns appeared in different news sites, with a gap of a couple of days.

9th Oct 2009 – Dabur launches ODOMOS Naturals Mosquito Repellent

Oct 10 2009 - Godrej Sara Lee launches new campaign for GoodKnight Naturals; ropes in Vidya Balan

So we now have two different brand campaigns with the same product name, extolling the same 3 virtues!!!

Like me, I guess most customers will end up thinking it’s the same campaign. So if someone sees the Good knight ad first, the Odomos ad is going to be mistaken for the Good Knight one and vice versa.

In most probability the initial sales will now be largely determined by the shelf presence of these brands and brand loyalty.