A great business idea for bath-soap manufacturers

A great business idea for bath-soap manufacturers

I remember when I was a little girl (a long long time ago) we have used only Hamam soap in our family. The fragrance used to be so good. (The good old days when the orange sugar candy had a great orange flavor, the Parle extra-strong peppermint that tasted really extra-strong with a great mint taste, that felt cool in the mouth and the Britania Ginger biscuits for which I haven’t found an equal around the world.)

In those days we never worried about / we were not told what is in the soap or what it is good for. To us it was just a soap that felt smooth to touch, lathered well and smelt good. Now I hear the Hamam soap advertised as containing extracts of Neem, Aloe vera and the tulsi herb.

The Lux soap is recommended by beauties like Hema Malini and Aishwarya Rai as good to have soft skin and also by the macho actor like Sharukh Khan to make it appeal to men too. The latest Hamam soap ads, promote the soap as anti- perspirant (aimed at teenage boys), as protection against pimples, even if you eat lots of oily fried food (aimed at teenage girls).

(For a short time, there was a soap named Ganga which was supposed to have been made with ganga water, to make it appeal to pious / old folks. The Lifebouy soap, a very old brand, was aimed at tough big men who got very dirty - like a sardharji lorry driver or an automobile mechanic - i don't know why my grandfather used it though he didn’t fit into any of these categories. Recently Detol came out with a bath-soap trying to capitalize on their brand image as anti-bacterial.)

This morning I had an idea. It was an ‘eureka’ moment. Why not make the soap appeal to a wider section of the people? Why not cover the entire population of India in one go - appealing to the rich and the poor equally, irrespective of age or gender? I know most of the new products come into the market with one such flash of an idea.

I have often wondered why I never get a simple, great business idea. I realize that we all do get flashes of bright ideas, but we brush it aside without giving it a second thought, as it would require too much of an effort to make it into a viable business.

But I felt, as a service to people of India, I can give this idea free to the makers of Hamam. Of course, publishing it in my blog, I have made it available to anybody who can take it up as a challenge and produce such a bath- soap.

Please make a bath-soap that is ‘mosquito repellent’.

I know it is a great idea. Did anybody think ‘Good Night’ mosquito coil would become such a big business? Combining two very essential every-day needs of the people into one product, the soap would appeal to a whole lot more people, will be easy to use and work out to be economical for the user too.

I am sure the Research and Development wing of the soap manufacturer can use a similar formula to make the anti-mosquito as effective as the anti- perspirant in the soap that lasts for the whole day.