BPL Is Seeking To Make A Comeback. Will It Succeed?

BPL is testing the waters in the white goods market again. This time it has gone the whole hog into the online market, riding on a tie-up with Flipkart.

- Ayushman Baruah

Brands drive products and vice versa and usually both die out together. Sometimes, a brand outlives the product which seems to have been the case with BPL. The BPL televisions and refrigerators have remained household names long after the company exited from the white goods business in 2008, when its joint venture with Japanese technology major Sanyo ended.

In the 1990s, almost every second Bhome in India owned a BPL appliance, particularly televisions and refrigerators. The fact that memories of the brand have lingered years after the products disappeared from the market, say a great deal about the brand loyalty of BPL’s consumers. “The brand stood for trust and quality. People expect BPL products to last forever,” says Ajit G. Nambiar, chairman and managing director, BPL. The company, he emphasises, had worked hard to live up to the tagline ‘Believe in the Best’.

BPL has many firsts to its credit. In the television space, it launched India’s first wide screen TV, India’s first 3D TV, India’s first full flat square TV and India’s first 1,000 watt TV, among others. In the refrigerator space, BPL launched India’s first convertible refrigerator known as ‘BPL Converti’ (in which the user could convert the freezer compartment into a fruit and vegetable compartment at the push of a button). It launched India’s first four-door refrigerator and the first ozone-safe refrigerator. The company also launched India’s first VCR, India’s first conversion microwave oven, India’s first portable CD player and India’s first alkaline battery.