Devon: Expansion or Competition Within The Orange Family?

At the launch of its new Devon luxury soap which held concurrently with the Miss Delta beauty pageant recently, the management of Orange Drugs Ltd disclosed that beginning from next year, the pageant will assume an international status and be known as Miss Orange beauty pageant, with the winner crowned Miss Devon. Against this background, Blessing Nwobodo questions if Devon is a friend or foe to Delta.

Often, experts’ advice brand owners to focus on building an already existing brand. Nevertheless, depending on right strategies, where there is a possibility and an opportunity to take control of a market, they equally encourage that a family of brands can be developed.
According to those in the know, all attempts to give brands a family look should be resisted so as to give each brand its own identity. So when Tony Ezenna, Chairman, Orange Drugs Ltd, disclosed that come 2011, the Miss Delta beauty pageant, arguably a huge and successful platform that promotes and projects the Delta soap brand, will go international and have its name changed to Miss Orange beauty pageant, it got some industry watchers thinking. More so, the winner of the competition is to be crowned Miss Devon Soap, while the 1st and 2nd runners up are to be crowned Miss Delta Soap and Miss Passion respectively.
Although some people say the new development will raise the bar for the pageant particularly since it will now accommodate contestants from other countries, others maintain that the pageant should be restricted to the Delta brand alone rather than have the whole family brand in one pageant. “It’s a brilliant idea to have the pageant go international, but I would have preferred that we have an international version of the Miss Delta beauty pageant. I mean, Orange Drugs could organize another platform for the Devon brand,” Hannah Nwankwo, a cosmetologist who witnessed this year’s event says.
She reasons that crowning next year’s queen Miss Devon will adversely affect the Delta brand. In her words “every one knows that Miss Delta beauty pageant is a platform that promotes and projects the Delta soap brand. If you now say the winner is Miss Devon, are you saying that Miss Delta is not good enough to be the winner? I see this as a challenge to the Delta brand.”
But Jalaj Arora, Marketing Manager, Orange Drugs, reassures consumers, maintaining that there is no cause for alarm. According to him, the two brands are not in the same category for them to compete in the first place. “I don’t see the two brands competing in any way because they are not in the same category. Delta is a medicated and antiseptic soap while Devon is a luxury soap like any other soap.”
He explains that luxury soaps naturally keep the skin smooth and glowing. “The idea of having a winner crowned Miss Devon subsequently in the Miss Orange beauty pageant is because we believe real beauty comes naturally and Devon is a natural soap meant for everybody. On the other hand, there are some beauties that are as a result of using a medicated and antiseptic soap; this is where Delta soap comes in. So the two brands have their separate functions.”
And, true to the notion that marketing budgets of a new brand eats into the budget of existing brands, M2 investigations reveal that the Devon brand, since introduction, has been enjoying exposures on the major platforms, once the prerogative of the Delta brand. Speaking on the company’s strategy to ensure that the Delta brand does not suffer a media blank-out, Arora states that, “Delta soap is a popular brand and has gained appreciable volume of sales since it entered the market. It has the confidence of the consumer as a high quality brand in the medicated and antiseptic market and we are leveraging on that to push the Devon brand. For now, Delta soap is playing the role of an accommodating big brother.” He adds that it is only reasonable at this point in time to pay special attention to the Devon brand.
Arora’s explanation may be better highlighted in the context of human families where the birth of a new baby shifts attention from the older ones to ensure the survival of the newborn. Devon, as the new baby of Orange Drugs is commanding all the care and attention. However, brand experts caution that such attention should not be at the expense of the older siblings. An overindulgence of Devon is likely to create room for the cannibalizing of other brands within the family which will do the fortunes of the mother company no good.
Whether the management of Orange Drugs gets the marketing equation right, only time will tell. A basic point that branding experts point out is that it is of utmost importance to give the two brands separate identities so as to ensure that none of them flourishes at the other’s expense.