Failure of Power Branding: A Case of HUL

Abstract

When a company has many brands in its kitty and customers start getting confused among the brands in terms of differentiation, quality and image, then it makes sense to contract your portfolio and focus its resources on few brands which are leader in their category. After all, resources are scarce. This strategy is known as power branding. This strategy was implemented by HUL in early 2000. Although this was very successful all over the globe, it failed in India. This paper is an attempt to understand this strategy in detail and also aims to uncover the reasons why this strategy didn't bear the expected results in India.