Challenging its 100-year legacy, Lux's body wash ad disses soaps

Whenever one mentions Lux, it is the soap that immediately comes to mind. On May 1, 2024, Lux, a soap brand under Unilever, completed 100 years of its existence. With Bollywood actor Suhana Khan as its brand ambassador, the new ad shows her saying that she is “breaking up” with soaps and will start using body wash instead because the fragrance of a soap fades away with time and use, but the fragrance of body wash does not.

In India, the bath and shower market is dominated by HUL, followed by ITC, Reckitt Benckiser, Godrej, Patanjali, Wipro, and more. According to Statista, the revenue generated in the shower and bath market in India in 2024 amounts to $3.76 billion. The market is projected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 5.28% (CAGR 2024-2028).

According to a report by IMARC Group, a research company, the Indian bath soap market size reached $2,885 million in 2022. Looking forward, the company expects the market to reach $4,139 million by 2028, exhibiting the annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2% during 2023-2028.

It is clear that Lux is best known for its soap, so why is the brand now shifting focus and cannibalising its own product?

Nisha Sampath, managing partner, Bright Angles Consulting, a business consulting and services company, reminisces about the time when she worked with J Walter Thompson Worldwide (JWT), an advertising agency, and managed Lux’s mandate.

She shares that the Lux body wash was introduced between 2004 and 2008, with the aim of upgrading soap users to body wash. At that time, the brand targeted a young, higher lifestyle segmentation marketing (LSM) audience because of the price difference. These audiences are organised by their preferences, hobbies, wants, needs, likes, and dislikes.

“Cut to today, not much has changed either for Lux body wash or for the category because body wash remains at very low penetration. For Lux to thrive as a brand, there needs to be value upgrading of consumers because that's what will bring better profitability for the company,” she says.

Sampath believes that it is good for Lux to try and upgrade people and it's not unlike what one sees in other categories. “I think it is part of HUL’s overall portfolio strategy with its brands. From the consumers’ perspective, liquid products are actually superior for delivering skincare benefits such as fragrance, exfoliation, and moisture. More benefits can be delivered in a liquid format than a solid bar,” she comments.

Nandita Chalam, visiting faculty at Xavier Institute of Communications and former SVP and executive creative director at JWT, feels that the entire world is now moving towards body wash and liquid soaps for hygiene reasons and also because they are more modern.

She adds that from 2003 to 2013, Lux was the number two soap-selling brand in India, while the highest-selling brand was Lifebuoy. “When you're a market leader and you know that the entire market is shifting towards something else, it's a question of if you can't beat them, join them,” notes Chalam.

The route to promote body wash by comparing it with soaps might seem a bit harsh, but it likely stems from the rapidly evolving consumer truth that body washes are becoming superior, convenient, and an aspirational format, leaving large soap brands with very few options other than to actively communicate the upgrade from old-school formats to fragrant, luxurious body washes.

As per Mintel, a market intelligence agency, research conducted in 2023 shows that 90% of consumers in India primarily use bar soap for their bathing routine, demonstrating their deep-rooted affinity for it. Conversely, only 9% of Indians report using body wash, shower gel, or shower cream as their main bathing product.

Manish Bhatt, founder and director of Scarecrow M&C Saatchi, an advertising agency, says that this was slightly a mixed-up approach. Normally, in the FMCG category, experts are used to communicating a rationale because one needs a voice that actually represents the product.

“From a consumer’s perspective, I have also seen that body wash is considered a more hygienic product compared to soap because soap has direct skin contact with more than one person in the family,” he says.

Chalam shared her experience of working with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan for the Lux ad on its 75th anniversary and said that after that ad was unveiled, Lux’s soap sales went up. Therefore, the situation would have been different if the concept of the ad had been more creative.

“I think for celebrating its 100 years, Lux could have done something that would have shaken things up as it did with SRK. When I was working on Lux, it was considered by every mother and not the preferred choice of the daughters in the house,” she adds.

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, Lux brought SRK as its endorser for soap, and for its 100th anniversary, the brand partnered with Suhana Khan to promote body wash. With both father and daughter endorsing different products for the same, it raises questions about potential audience confusion, given their significant engagement and fan bases.

Sampath explains that by bringing Suhana, Lux is addressing the young audience to start using body wash early as part of their personal care regime as “she has more of an appeal to the Gen Z demographic. Lux is known for its legacy of using stars and by using Suhana, it has continued that it will be working with stars and star kids.”

Chalam agrees and adds that Suhana is not a bad choice because she does have a big social media following. However, she notes that this ad was not really the best way to go about it, and Suhana could have just promoted body wash without comparing it to soap.

“The body wash is introduced to appeal to a younger audience. It offers more moisturising properties compared to soap, which tends to be drying. During my time with Lux, we conducted some research that indicated Lux typically enters the household because the mother purchases it. Therefore, we recognised the need to shift the target audience, leading to the launch of Lux body wash,” she shares.

The body wash market in India

The body wash market in India is expanding, driven by trends in e-commerce, premium product offerings, and a growing consumer base that prioritises personal hygiene and skincare.

A recent research study by MarkNtel Advisors, a research, consulting, and data analytics firm cited that the India Body Wash Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 4.68% during the forecast period from 2023-2028.

Shankar Prasad, founder and CEO, Plum, an Indian vegan beauty and skincare company says that from an audience sizing perspective on key e-commerce platforms, body washes have achieved 75% of the scale that soaps currently enjoy.

He also shares that the rise of key opinion leaders in the personal care and beauty space on popular social media platforms and the widespread access to them seem to be crucial factors behind this shift.

“With all key soap players in India now spending elaborate media budget with well-known celebrities fronting the campaigns and building the body wash category, the interest in the category is likely to grow multi-fold in the coming years. Additionally, akin to how face washes went from being an emerging format at one point to the dominant format, the same can safely be assumed for body washes as well,” he asserts.

Moving forward

As more people start using body wash, it will become more economical. What one will see is more of a mass premiumisation of body wash. Therefore, it will have affordable price points.

On the other hand, in the masses of India, it is still soap that sells. Experts believe that it will take a while for body washes to completely replace soap bars. Bhatt feels that using body wash is hygienic but soap still comes back in the form of a premium product. “I am assuming that both of them will co-exist in some form but the body wash will be the one with a higher amount of share.”

As per Prasad, soaps will exist but with limited, if any, growth potential. The upgrade from soaps to body washes is a one-way movement, with very little reversal happening.

However, it is not clear that consumers would seek out the very same brands when they upgrade from using soaps to body washes.

“In the case of body washes, it is the suitability of the brand in that category that will matter more than whether the brand is already present in the soap category or not. Therefore, the field opens up quite widely for all sorts of brands,” he conveys.

Zairus Master, chief business officer, Honasa Consumer, a personal care company, says that personal wash is a large market.

Any brand that is looking to have a meaningful role in that space will always look at the personal body wash category. He adds that some of the traditional brands have a large share in soap. To drive up the value chain, they will look at newer forms which are more consumer-relevant.

“When I am seeing this category (personal wash) from a distance, I see a large portion of the category in soaps where I have low shares. So it is about figuring out how I can disrupt this category. By the sheer size of soaps, I would say it is still very exciting. If you can innovate and provide a differentiated proposition, then it will be relevant,” he notes.

(With additional inputs from Benita Chacko)