The Glue Journey

Sneha Nayuni | President Marketing Club (Crowdcore)

Do we use Fevicol every day? No…! Then how did it become a household name?

Fevicol used innovative marketing tactics to maximize adhesive revenue because it was a low-involvement category. Fevicol's quick, imaginative, and funny commercials have resonated with consumers over the years, contributing to the brand's popularity.

Pidilite Industries Limited, an Indian firm, owns the Fevicol brand of adhesives. It’s a 60-year-old brand that was largely unknown until the Ogilvy campaign made it popular. Ogilvy is New York based advertising, marketing and PR agency which turns the brand’s story into an experience to communicate with the consumers. The Fevicol-Ogilvy collaboration was successful before which Pidilite struggled for a decade to get its reach for Fevicol in the market.

Pidilite established an adhesive monopoly later-on and then re-invested the profits to establish a waterproofing monopoly in India. Pidilite is well-known for its popular commercials, marketing, and high-quality products. The product range of Fevicol includes sealants, automotive chemicals, paint chemicals, art and industry adhesives, textile resins and organic pigments. However, its target audience not only consisted of interior designers, carpenters, adhesive dealers, architects but also the common man who influences decision making in a

household. How did they do that?

What goes behind Fevicol’s promotional strategies?

Adhesives are a difficult group to identify because you only think about them when you need them. You don't think about them on a daily basis the way you would think of toothpaste, soap, or your morning cup of tea. Advertising for such a category becomes even more complicated and challenging.

Marketing Communication Strategy:

Message: Fevicol binds two things so strongly that it is unbreakable forever.

Famous Tagline: “Ye Fevicol ka mazboot jod he tootega nahi”

Intent: Brand of adhesive Fevicol is known for its modern and humorous ads that has fascinated millions of customers who grew up with television and the internet. It is often viewed as targeting the millennials to crack them up with short yet communicative ads, hoardings and banners.

Reasons of Fevicol’s success:

The quality of the product was top-notch. Fevicol never compromised on its quality during the initial stages of launch while it was facing losses too. It focused on selling to the consumers directly like for instance, carpenters were made aware of using good quality adhesives instead of trusting local hardware shops for the same.

It does not go by value or demand pricing as there is invisible competition. Hence, cost-based strategy i.e., variable cost-based markup pricing is adopted. Loyal customer base for its quality and promotional stunts sets Fevicol apart from the competitors and customers find it economically insignificant if the prices are marked up.

Once Ogilvy collaborated with Fevicol brand, created its logo and organized various campaigns communicating the products longevity with humor, there was no turning back.

Fevicol’s logo narrates half its story. Logo created is visually easy to register and recall. It has two elephants and for the last 60 years, two elephants have been trapped in a tug of war which emphasizes the unbreakable strength of Fevicol.

Insights:

The art of investing in low-involvement categories and get rewarding returns is unfamiliar to many, which set Fevicol a monopoly in two decades. Fevicol now has around 70 percent market share, and rest of its competitors fall under unorganized local brands. Out of which half of its shares contribute to the adhesive product line with 3000 crore revenue per year.

Its out-of-box advertising has made Fevicol synonymous for adhesives and ensured top-of-the mind recall for consumers. Its iconic ads and taglines include ‘Mazboot Jod’, ‘Dum laga ke haisha’, ‘egg’ to a name a few that have redefined brand positioning.

Recently, it started moment marketing on social media, it ran ads for Game of Thrones, the India-New Zealand cricket match during the ICC World Cup 2019, Yoga Day, and Yuvraj Singh's retirement, among other things. Do check out Fevicol’s ad’s now after the read!

https://youtu.be/7gXYn4G4f3g

https://youtu.be/lC5EhJl1wFE

https://youtu.be/lzB5Yt3AS_w

https://youtu.be/6kaIEc1iNKQ

For the 60th brand anniversary, Fevicol launched an ad capturing the rural Indian tradition.

https://youtu.be/2d1UziUyO7I

Hope you had insightful fun watching the ads this time!