Deodorant Advertisements- Positioning Strategy going wrong

These days we can see the frequencies of deodorants advertisements have increased

. This clearly indicates that there are more brands in the market and every brand is making an effort to establish itself in the minds of its target customers.

To name a few brands which I am able to recall are the brands like Denver, Addiction and Wild Stone etc. I have not mentioned about AXE, reason is that, AXE easily forms the part of the evoked set. It is only the new Men's deodorants, I am writing about.

Most of these deodorant brands are positioning their brand on "Sex Appeal". Whenever we see a men's deodorant ad, we get to see one of the two types of ads. The first type will have a male model flaunting his six packs with bunch of skimpily clad gals pouncing upon him (of course after using that particular deodorant). Second type of ad is one in which the gal starts to strip because of the fragrance of the deodorant. When there are almost 7-8 types of brands whose ads fall under these two categories, a viewer will not be able to recall the brand. Another deodorant brand, Wild Stone, though positions itself on sex appeal; it highlights the fantasies of married women in its advertisements. So its ads seem to a little different from the others.

By seeing deodorant ads, one gets the feeling that these ads are for one single brand and only the models change every time. Not only is the positioning strategy same, even the manner in which they attempt to position through these ads is the same. So, a person will feel, the ad mite be of one brand and thus will not be able to recall all the brands.

The entire purpose of advertisement and the concept of distinctive positioning itself are not being served. And thus the brand will fail in its attempt of establishing itself in the minds of its target customers. So the upcoming brands should realize, following the leader's Positioning Strategy will not help, and it should make some serious attempts to position itself in a unique manner if it has to form the part of evoked set. Not even a single brand is making an attempt to position itself on the purpose for which a deodorant is used. Also, the deodorant ads are such that, in a way they seem to convey that middle-aged men are too old to use a deodorant. So its time to come out the "Sex Appeal" theme and do something that will really provoke the target customers.

Basically, a brand tries to follow a trend of advertisement that exists. Take for example; IDEA came with the concept of social benefit (Save Trees) in its advertisement. To go with the trend, AIRCEL came up with Save Tiger campaign. Some times in an attempt to go with the trend, brands fail in its attempt to distinguish itself from other brands. Thus entire expenditure will go for a toss and purpose of advertising itself is not served.

Not just the deodorant, take any particular product category. If all the players in a product category base their ads on a similar concept and also use the same method to convey a message, then it will just seem that all the players together are promoting the "entire product category" rather than their respective brand in particular. This becomes necessary when the product is entirely new to the market. However for products like deodorant, it makes no sense. However, if a brand uses a medium or media vehicle, which other brands do not use, then there are possibilities that, people exposed to this particular media vehicle may recall the brand. But again, the success will solely depend on the effectiveness of media vehicle and may turn out to be a gamble on the part of brand.

So it is important for a brand not to follow the leader's positioning strategy but come up with distinctive positioning strategy. Only then its target customers will be able to recall the brands and thus brands will fall into the consideration set.

Deodorant Advertisements- Positioning Strategy going wrong

By: Chaitanya Naik

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