Brand Update : Amrutanjan wants to be Sexy

It has been a long time since I updated about Amrutanjan. A lot has happened with this brand including a rebranding exercise and launch of various variants. Amrutanjan which once had a generic status in the pain balm market is now the third largest player in the Rs 1700 crore pain balm/rub market with a market share of around 10%. The balm which was projected as a one-stop solution for all kinds of pain found it difficult to position itself in the increasingly fragmented market. With more and more specialized brands entering the market, Amrutanjan's positioning of an all-purpose brand became largely diluted.

Realizing this, the brand came out with a slew of variants and a change in the positioning. The brand also rebranded itself with a change in the logo to make it more contemporary and appealing to younger generation. Amrutanjan launched a sub-brand Amrutanjan Relief specifically for Cold management product range. The brand also introduced Roll-On variant positioning it on the basis of convenience in carrying.

In the promotional front, the brand changed its famous " Its Gone " ( Fast Relief) positioning and experimented with various other positioning platforms. In 2010,the brand roped in celebrities like Asin to endorse the brand. 

Another experiment in promotion was the " Be Ready " campaign where ten  ' slice of life ' situations were shown in the TVC where people accidently  got injured. The campaign wanted consumers to be ready with Amrutanjan because one never know when injury will happen. The campaign further asked consumers to share their own videos of such instances. 

When its main competitor Zandu Balm sizzled the market with Malliaka Arora , Amrutanjan followed suit with an attempted sizzling ad for its roll-on variant. According to Soumyadip of Cutting The Chai blog, the ad is inspired by the (in)famous Savita Bhabhi . 

Watch the ad here : Amrutanjan Roll on

The ad also gives a new tagline " Kick Out Pain " for the variant.

In my opinion, the new campaign qualify for one of the worst brand campaigns in India. The ad which is of poor taste neither talks anything sensible about the brand nor it is interesting. The brand thought that this campaign would become viral but that also did not happen. Overall it was a mega flop campaign.

Amrutanjan never found a strong positioning ever since it ditched its " Its Gone " ( fast relief)  platform. There was no reason for the brand to ditch such a strong memorable positioning. Now it is paying price for that mistake. 

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Amrutanjan