LUXurious experience
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History
The LUX soap was first found by Lever brothers. LUX started as “Sunlight Flakes” laundry soap in 1899.In 1925, it became the first mass-market toilet soap in the world.
The name changed from “Sunlight Flakes” to “LUX” in 1900, a Latin word for «light» and suggestive of «Luxury.”
The market vacuum
The soap was targeted to attract the people who were spending a lot of money to buy fragranced soap from countries such as France. LUX was brought into the market as a substitute for the expensive French soap, hence the tagline, “Made as fine as French Soap” was used.
There was also a weak point where these different brands affected the sensitive skin, and they came up with a new formula which was healthier for the skin with the mission of building the “Health through hygiene”
Expansion
It started off as a small company where the very first bar of toilet soap was sold for 10 cents, but gradually developed into a mass company by using their marketing strategies.
Today LUX products are manufactured at 71 locations with more than 2000 suppliers and associates providing the raw materials.LUX soap has been marketed in several forms, including beauty soaps, shower gels, bath additives, hair shampoos and conditioners.
It has key markets in countries such as Brazil, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and South Africa, and is a market leader for soap bars in India, Pakistan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam.
As of 2009, LUX revenue was estimated at €1 billion, with market shares spread out to more than 100 countries around the globe.
LUX (soap) has established the head quarter in Singapore at present and celebrated its 90th anniversary last year.
Marketing strategies
The main target audience was young women and used ‘glamour’ in a personified manner.
LUX has carried out the longest running campaign world-wide which started off with the focus on Hollywood stars but eventually moved on to appreciate the local stars especially after entering India in 1929.
LUX’s early advertising campaigns aimed to educate users about its credentials as a laundry product but as time went by they developed a different strategy. After educating the users about the new methods, they aimed at the ways that they could attract the buyers.
In different time periods they came up with different campaigns giving focus to the trends in the contemporary society.Even when faced with competitors, LUX continued to remain faithful to its cinematic subjects.
LUX has been the earliest form of celebrity endorsement. It launched its first campaign targeting the movie fans and used the most famous movie stars of the world and defined beauty romanticising the “film star feeling”. It highlighted the importance of the youthful skin for a woman.
It expanded the notion of beauty where the ordinary women could link to “a day in the life” of a star by also giving focus to natural beauty.
As time went by the company stepped down from the stage to the ordinary lives to shift the focus and to draw a parallel between the ordinary and the extra ordinary to inspire women to become stars which went beyond beauty to become self-confident by “LUX brings out the star in you”campaign.
The concerns shifted from specific skin benefits to a stronger emotional space and encouraged consumers to take a more active stance on beauty where the modern philosophy is encapsulated in a simple phrase: Declare your beauty.
The most recent campaign consists of creating awareness about breast cancer which is a more frequent issue that the women are faced with. As a step to create awareness the “Soap with a lump” slogan was put forward where they went to the extent to create a bar of soap which has a lump.
Inspiring lives
After creating the market and achieving it LUX decided to move out to the world. They stepped in to the society to inspire the women to rise above the conventional society to rise above the socially set norms, which limit their ability and capabilities. They brought a concept of valuing femininity not as a weakness but as strength. “Celebrate the fabulous you” is all that is says, be confident and be you.
LUX also joined hand to launch a female music festival in Indonesia, “LUX sound of women” to celebrate the artists who lull the world by music.
In India, LUX celebrates women with an annual “Golden Rose Awards” and in Pakistan created LUX Style Awards which joins together to celebrate the female cinematic legends in the film industry.
Throughout these years lux has striven to improve and influence the women and to give them a little push to be themselves and they surely have inspired many.
-MadhushaDep-