Hul Pureit

        HUL, an Indian subsidiary of Unilever group, had products in Non-durables. In early 2000, HUL began to pursue new opportunities outside its traditional products and markets. One of them Project Shakti for underprivileged rural women, extending HUL’s rural marketing reach. Another venture was to create a water purification system for consumer use, an endeavor to bring clean drinking water to masses.

        HUL was compelled into water purifier business as Commission on Sustainable development had estimated that it would require $25 billion a year over the next 25 years to provide access to improved water and sanitation services for all. This provided opportunities for innovative business solutions for water, especially in emerging economies where close to 42% of the population lacked access to safe water. Also in-home point-of-use (POU) water purifier market in India was estimated to be worth $450 million in 2009 and projected to grow at CAGR of 20% from 2009 to 2014, reaching $1.1 billion in 2014. Also current water purifier usage was just 8% and by 2025, 41% of India’s 1.14 billion-strong population was expected to be middle class and rising literacy had led to higher awareness of health issues, making water purifier a good venture to enter in.

Factors accounting for HUL’s Pureit success -

• Strategy of pricing the product at what target consumer could afford
• Low pricing affordable to the millions of Indians who lacked clean drinking water
• Only player at low end of market for first two years with key competitors focused at the top end of the market
• Countertop purifier had not developed prior to HUL’s entry and as most cities and towns faced infrastructural constraints like electricity and water shortage it gained significant consumer penetration
• It was India’s first fully automatic water purifier having end-of-life indicator, did not compromise on quality and used open-source technologies
•  Marketing strategy based on brand outreach through mass media, relationship-building initiatives, DTH sales channels and Doctor partnerships
• Strong promotion to build credibility of Pureit’s “as safe as boiled water” brand proposition and aimed at building consumer confidence that only Pureit provided complete protection from harmful germs to the family
• Use of go-to-market strategy focusing on educating consumers for which it built expansive DTH network
• Trained demonstrators as “water experts”, paying 30% less than its competitors
• Created awareness through Doctor’s partnership program like “protecting lives”
• To accelerate penetration in rural areas did partnership with many NGOs