What has Bates to do with Dabur? And what is Binaca Toothpaste anyway?

There is no single truth; there are only perceptions of the truth.

The report started out as a simple account movement story: Dabur has moved its estimated Rs 6 crore - Rs 8 crore oral healthcare product Lal Dant Manjan (Red Tooth Powder) from Mudra Communication to Bates, Delhi. In the process of gathering information on this development, a simple story metamorphosed into something like a popular Hollywood flick.

Who's to be believed and who is not, we leave that to you. On our part, we'd simply recall the course of events.

Day One

The moment agencyfaqs! learnt that the advertising account of Dabur's Lal Dant Manjan (LDM) has moved from Mudra to Bates, calls were made to Dabur, Bates and Mudra to verify the facts. It emerged that following a month-long review, Bates has won the LDM business on the back of a creative-cum strategy pitch. Confirming the news, Dabur said, "The decision to shift the LDM business to Bates was part of Dabur's routine exercise to keep the brands in rotation for better results."

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of a long and complicated story.

Our discussion with some of the agencies in the fray (and there were three) indicated this was a simple case of brand swapping. Binaca, the brand serviced by Bates, has been shifted to Mudra, and LDM, which was with Mudra, has been handed to Bates.

But why didn't Dabur tell us about Binaca in the first place? That meant one more call to Dabur's corporate communication department. Dabur's respose, rather than clearing the confusion, made matters worse.

"If you are saying that some brands were swapped, your information is wrong. Mudra always had Binaca toothpowder and toothbrush and there is no such thing called Binaca toothpaste. Thus Bates could not have handled any Binaca business." He added, "Bates has never worked on a Dabur product before LDM.".

So is Binaca toothpaste a figment of someone's imagination? Was agencyfaqs.com wrong in its report ‘Bates and Euro-RSCG join Dabur ad club' (January 24, 2001), in which we reported that Dabur had appointed Bates India to handle Binaca toothpaste? In that report, Atulit Saxena, vice-president, Bates, Delhi, had gone on record saying, "This gives us an enormous opportunity to work on a challenging assignment."

The Internet came to the rescue. After running a couple searches on the net, we found two articles that talked about Binaca The Toothpaste. First, a report in Financial Express, ‘Dabur finally revives Binaca - to launch white toothpowder' (dated January 11, 2001), which said, "…Gauging consumer response, Dabur will launch the product nationally and may also extend the Binaca brand to toothpaste, gel and mouthwash as well." To that Dabur had added, "Depending on consumer response, we'll go national."

Second, a short piece ‘Binaca to be relaunched' in the Tribune (August 18, 1998). It said, "The Rs 800-crore ayurveda and health care company Dabur India is taking on Colgate and Lever's Close Up by launching a toothpaste under the Binaca brand name, a senior company official has said. Binaca brand is being redesigned and repositioned and will be launched this year, Dabur's Chairman and Managing Director G.C. Burman told PTI."

If these stories are anything to go by then Binaca toothpaste does exist, albeit at a developmental stage, and Bates, by its own admission to agencyfaqs.com, was working on the launch of the product.

So, what happened to the launch?

Day Two

While we were struggling to put the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle in place, we recalled another story on agencyfaqs.com, which kind of refutes the contention of Dabur that Bates has never worked on a Dabur product. The story was titled ‘Bates, Delhi, on overdrive; gets Vatika Lite' and it said Bates had picked up two more Dabur businesses in the hair care segment. While one was a developmental brand, the second was the Vatika Lite account from Mudra. In fact, Shovon Chowdhury, senior vice-president and general manager, Bates India, had confirmed the win, saying, "Yes, we have won Vatika Lite and another developmental brand about which I cannot talk."

If Bates was never a Dabur agency until LDM, why were Bates, Mudra and agencyfaqs! led to believe that the agency was one of Dabur's seven roster agencies (besides O&M, Leo Burnett, Contract Advertising, Mudra, Euro RSCG, Dhar & Hoon)?

What is the truth?

The Dabur official we were speaking to has this to say: "I have told you the truth. If you want to believe what Dabur is saying then go by it; if you want to believe what others are saying then just go by that. As far as Dabur is concerned, Bates has only become Dabur's agency with LDM."

Does that mean there never was any interaction between Bates and Dabur until LDM happened? "Not really, Bates had done some designing work for our corporate diary." Dabur's last words.

Bates' reaction: "We have no reaction to this."

At the end of a two-day quest, we know two things for sure. One, Bates has got LDM. Two, the history of Binaca can't be any weirder than the history of its agency alignment. © 2002 agencyfaqs!