Jyothy Labs' Exo and Maxo go to Orchard Advertising

Orchard Advertising, the sister concern of Leo Burnett, has been awarded the creative mandate for Exo utensil cleaner and Maxo mosquito repellent from the stable of Jyothy Laboratories.

The agency's Mumbai branch will handle both accounts. The development is the result of a multi-agency pitch process that was held in Mumbai recently.

In the past, Interact Vision and more recently, DDB Mudra have worked on Exo's advertising. DDB Mudra has also worked on the creative duties of Maxo recently, as has Rediffusion-Y&R in the past.

Since 2000, Jyothy, traditionally a single-product (Ujala) company, forayed into other daily use household product categories with the launch of brands like Exo (surface cleaning), Maxo (mosquito repellent), Jeeva (personal care) and Maya (incense sticks). Today, JLL operates in the laundry, home care, cosmetics and toiletries segments.

Unlike most brands in the dish-washing category that talk about shine, Exo is positioned as an 'antibacterial dish washing product'. The product packaging highlights the ingredient Cyclozan, a protective antibacterial agent with cleansing properties. The brand is known to have a significant presence in many parts of South India and has been an active advertiser in this region since its inception.

Exo has used situation-based advertising (humorous and serious), testimonial-like advertising as well as comparative advertising in the past. The company now plans to promote the brand in the North and West.

Exo was first launched in bar form in 2000 in Kerala, and later launched across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In 2005, Exo's liquid variant was launched. Brand Exo also extended its product offering to a dish scrubber, Exo Safai. Exo saw a national roll-out around 2009-10.

On the other hand, launched in West Bengal in the year 2000, Maxo marked Jyothy Labs' foray into the household insecticide space. Maxo was originally launched in coil form. In fact, the brand's non-electrical, slow burning spiral insecticide coil was in line with the issue of low electricity connectivity in rural India. Over time though, Maxo rolled out product extensions in the form of liquid (vapouriser) and aerosol (spray) offerings. R Madhavan, popular actor in the South as well as Bollywood, has endorsed Maxo in the past.

Jyothy Laboratories (JLL), a Rs 2,667 crore organisation, was established in 1983 by M P Ramachandran, the current chairman and managing director of the company. It is popularly known as Jyothy Labs.

DDB Mudra Max handles the media planning and buying duties for Jyothy's entire portfolio.