When legacy meets aspiration

FROM PRICE WARRIOR TO VALUE CURATOR, NIRMA MIRRORS A MATURED MARKET

- GEETIKA SRIVASTAVA

FOR A BRAND that once forced market leaders to rethink the very meaning of “value”, Nirma’s latest move feels like a careful reset. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nirma unseated giants like Surf by collapsing the price hierarchy of detergents, selling at a fraction of the cost and immersing itself into popular culture with a jingle involving its four iconic leading ladies — Hema, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma.

Three decades on, the company is no longer trying to win by being the cheapest. With its latest Nirma Advance campaign, ‘Tujhsa hi Nirma hai’, it is confronting a new marketing dynamic where product performance has become the primary category narrative. The value end of the market has also changed significantly, with the RSPL Group’s Ghari detergent emerging a dominant player (with 16-20% share).

But can a brand born of economy climb the value ladder without breaking its emotional contract with lower and middle-income households?