Brand Update : Santoor Extends to Baby Soaps ?

I stumbled upon a commercial for Santoor Baby soap in Facebook, thanks to the tip from Bhatnaturally. I was surprised to see this move from one of India's biggest soap brands - Santoor.
Watch the ad here : Santoor Baby 
A search in Google yielded no results. I assume that the ad is real and Santoor is now test marketing this brand extension in select markets. Since the ad features the South Indian actress Jyothika, Santoor is serious about the new launch.

Indian baby care market is huge with a size of  Rs 3000 crore expected to grow at a rate of 20% according to ASSOCHAM.The baby skin care market is valued at Rs 400 crore and toiletries valued at Rs 380 crore.
Johnson and Johnson has a huge stronghold in this market with a share of over 70% . Many brands like Sparsh from Marico and Babysoft from Wipro tried unsuccessfully to dethrone J&J . It is in this context that Santoor's move becomes relevant and interesting.
Santoor has been very consistent in its positioning. Santoor's core brand's positioning is " for a younger looking skin". The brand through all its campaign effectively reinforced this positioning and became India's second biggest soap brand.
Santoor Baby soap will be trying to leverage this equity . The problem is that Santoor is perceived to be a soap for adults. So when such a brand launches a baby soap, inevitably doubts arises with regard to the mildness of the soap. Wipro earlier tried the Baby Soft brand but couldn't succeed so it is now trying to extend its best brand's equity. The ad shows not an infant but a 2-4 year old kid. So the brand will be trying to target the segment which is slowly growing out of the Johnson and Johnson's baby soap. More over since the child is growing , mothers will not be much bothered about trying out a baby soap from Santoor's portfolio.

Brand Update : Lux Extends to Deo

Lux, India's most famous personal care brand has extended itself to deo. The campaigns are on air featuring the extensions. The deo market in India is witnessing huge amount of brand activity with new brands being launched almost every month. According to Economic Times, the deo market is estimated to be around Rs 1300 crore and growing at 40%. 

The question as always is what can be logic behind HUL extending its iconic brand to deo. It is not that Lux is not extended before. The brand has soaps, shampoos, bodywash in the product-line. Globally this is the first time that the brand is extending to deodorants. 

HUL has been a pioneer in creating the deo category in India. The company holds its leadership position in the market with its iconic brand Axe. HUL also has its anti perspiration deo Sure and also Dove. So rather than investing on these brands why would HUL try to extend Lux into this category ? 

One of the reason can be to pre-empt competition by flooding the market with its own brands. Lux has a huge equity which will translate to trials and incremental sales. Further, the company is also wary about the launch of competing brands like Santoor, Nivea etc into this category. 

However, HUL is taking the risk of spreading the budgets too far on these extensions. After Axe, the company was not able to come out with another blockbuster deo brand. It pulled out Rexona and Sure was not able to replicate the success of Rexona ( during the initial years). Dove is also another brand which is extended to almost all imaginable personal care categories.

Lux as a brand will get more diluted  if HUL tries to milk its equity too much. None of its earlier extensions could replicate the success of the core brand. Rather than diluting, HUL could have launched new focused deo brands.